FARMERS BULLETIN 



forces. These forces, while necessarv for the successful oper- 

 ation of the business, are. in a sense, unproductive. 



In tlie feeding of tlie d;.iry cow this overhead expense, this un- 

 prodnctive force, is termed the "maintenance ration."* and is that 

 portion of the feed given ihe cow which is used hy her to perform 

 her own fund ions, such as heating the body, pumping the Mood, di- 

 gesting the Iced, aud moving the l.xxiv from place to place. This 

 feed, from a productive standpoint, is entirely lost to the farmer. 

 The cow can produce without- loss of body weight oulv after she 

 has exaded this toll of maintenance. Having received feed enough 

 to maintain her. practically all the feed she consumes above this 

 can he used for milk production. This maintenance ration is a iixed 

 charge, and the more feed a cow can consume above that required 

 for maintenance ihe greater the amount available for production. 



Feeding for profit can, therefore, be defined as liberal feeding, or 

 feeding to the full capacity of the cow. This point is illustrated by 

 Table 1. ( Tho>e figures are only approximate but will serve to 

 illustrate the point.! 



TAISLK 1. 



r proportions of c-cnrtf feed rc<-uirc<l for maintcnanrc and. 

 (ii'tiilcrblc for milk production. 



Cost of 

 m.rinle- 

 nnnce. 



< > ne-third. 



( )l!(>-h;lll'. 



Three-fifth; 



It will be noted in Table 1 that when the cow is fed only a main- 

 tenance ration no feed is available for milk production; when she is 

 fed twice this quantity, half the feed can be used for milk produc- 

 tion : when she is fed two and a half times the maintenance, three- 

 fifths of the feed can be so used. One of the most common mistakes 

 in the feeding of dairy cattle on our farms is that the good cows are 

 not fed a sufficient quantity of feed above that required for main- 

 tenance. This is cspeciallv true of the highlv specialized dairy cow; 

 that is. the cow which when fed all she will take makes it all into 

 milk, except what is needed for maintenance. It is, however, unfor- 

 tunately true that all cows in the dairies of the country are not this 

 kind. Some cows when fresh make all the feed above maintenance 

 into milk" for a period of several months before thev begin to lay on 

 f!e-h : others, if fed heavily, begin to gain in weight soon after fresh- 

 ening, l-'rom i he standpoint of economical milk production one can 

 not generally alSord to give a dairy cow more than she will consume 



