10 BULLETIN 128. 



that certainly must appeal to the man who is dairying on a 

 business basis. 



PART I. Practice of Feeding. 



FREQUENCY OF FEEDING. The main part of the ration should 

 be supplied in two feeds ; one in the morning and the other in 

 the late afternoon. It is desirable to feed some dry roughage 

 at noon, especially when the roughage in the morning and even- 

 ing consists of silage. The cow, on account of her large store 

 room, the paunch, is capable of storing up a large quantity of 

 feed and, therefore, does not require as many feeds as some 

 other farm animals. 



ORDER OF FEEDING CONCENTRATES AND ROUGHAGE. As a 

 rule it is best to feed the concentrates just previons to milking 

 and the roughage immediately thereafter. The grain helps to 

 attract the cows to their staJlls, and, by feeding the roughage 

 after milking, we avoid tainting the milk with undesirable odors 

 when the roughage contains these. When corn silage, for ex- 

 ample, is fed immediately before or during milking, its odor is 

 always perceptible in the milk. When fed after milking, the 

 odor is never detected. It is believed also that feeding the 

 concentrates by themselves will result in a more thorough mix- 

 ing of saliva with them and thus increase their digestibility. 

 Furthermore, a great deal of dust can be avoided by feeding the 

 roughage after milking, particularly when the roughage con- 

 sists of hay or dry fodder. 



A prevailing opinion that heavy concentrates will form an 

 injurious, pasty mass in the cow's stomach does not seem to be 

 well founded. When the concentrates are fed directly before 

 milking and the roughage directly after, there will be sufficient 

 mixing in the paunch before the contents pass into the stomach 

 proper. The writer, for several years, has successfully fol- 

 lowed the practice of feeding concentrates and roughage sepa- 

 rately when the former consisted of as much as five pounds of 

 cotton seed meal per day. 



FEEDING BEFORE AND AFTER CALVING. Toward the close of 

 the lactation period, the grain ration should be gradually re- 

 duced, either because of the reduced flow of milk, or on account 

 of the desirability of drying up the cow so that she may have 

 a month's rest before calving. It should be remembered, how- 



