128 CONKEY'S STOCK BOOK 



3. All she'll eat of clover hay, 35 Ibs. corn silage, 2 Ibs. bran. 



4. All she'll eat of corn fodder, 40 Ibs. corn silage, 2 Ibs. shorts, 2 Ibs. 

 dried brewer's grains, 2 Ibs. oil meal. 



5. Or with alfalfa, say 20 Ibs. alfalfa hay, 4 Ibs. oats, 2 Ibs. cornmeal. 

 Just why these are satisfactory milk rations you will readily see when 



you read over the general section on Feeds and Feeding. 



A POINTER Never throw down feed immediately before milking; or 

 ON FEEDING you'll get a crop of floating straws, seed, dust, etc., with 

 the milk, especially if you are milking into a common un- 

 suitable style of milk pail with top wide-flaring so as to catch all the filth 

 that's going. To avoid this a good plan is to follow some such dairy 

 program as given by the Cornell Experiment Station for winter manage- 

 ment, as follows: 1, milking; 2, feeding grain; 3, feed silage; 4, clean 

 gutters; 5, water stock; 6, feeding hay; 7 grooming; 8, turn out in the. 

 barnyard when pleasant (best time is 2 hours early in afternoon); 9, water 

 stock; 10, clean stables; 11, feed grain; 12, milking; 13, feed silage; 14, ar- 

 range bedding. When a man has followed this daily program it is with 

 a clear conscience he can put the pin in the barn door for the night. 



MORE HOME- One great need for profitable dairy farming is more suc- 

 GROWN FEED culent feeds and especially more home-grown feeds, in- 

 creasing forage crops and reducing pastures. This means 

 more careful rotation of crops, and increasing use of the silo. Many 

 dairymen today do almost entirely without pasture, even in summer sea- 

 son, but rely on soiling, raising plenty of good forage crops which can be 

 cut and carried to the barn for the animals. Double crops and silos are 

 the aim of thousands of ambitious farmers, reducing acreage, but making 

 possible a larger dairy, with small risk from droughts. But the whole 

 big subject of feeding dairy cows can only be touched on here. A fuller 

 account is aimed at page 35 under Feeds and Feeding. 



DOUBLE-BARRELED The aim is to increase the amount of production 

 PROFIT and lessen the cost of producing. A reduction 



of 10 percent in cost means a bigger profit than 



an advance of, say, 2 cents a pound in butter. Feed that is home-grown 

 costs less than what you buy, and is better for both cow and owner. 



GETTING FOOD The great thing to remember with cows is to keep up 



OUT OF FEED their appetites so they will relish and make use ot 



their feeds. If it is not palatable, a feed is just that 



much less digestable. They may eat it; but there is a larger proportion 

 of the substance untouched in digestion. It makes not milk or flesh, but 

 manure. Another point in digestion is this: more than one-half the live 

 weight of animals is water; and 85 percent of the milk yield is water, 01 

 course. Now water is the universal solvent, the substance by means of 

 which all animals and plants make nourishing use of the elements they 

 absorb. So, for complete digestion, furnish the animals with plenty of 

 water. And for milk production, remember what a high percent of water 

 there is in milk, and take deep thought of the old milkman's joke about 

 "watering the milk before it comes from the cow." A 6 gallon milker 

 needs just twice as much water as a 3 gallon milker. Some dairymen 

 say a cow needs about 2 Ibs. of water and 1 Ib. of feed to each pound of 

 milk produced. At the time Missouri Chief Josephine was giving 100 Ibs. 

 of milk per day she drank fully 31 gallons of water warm water of 



