FISH MEAL AS A STOCK AND POULTRY FOOD. 5 



Hals and Kavli ^ report analyses of fish meal made from slightly salted herring 

 and from the waste of heavily salted herring. The composition of the former 

 was : Water, 11.11 per cent ; protein, 61.11 per cent ; fat, 14.06 per cent ; and ash, 

 11.79 per cent. Of the latter, the composition was : Water, 10.81 per cent ; 

 protein, 42.29 per cent ; fat, 13.17 per cent ; and ash, 23.06 per cent. Digestion 

 experiments showed that 12.7 pounds of digestible fat and 56.3 pounds of 

 digestible protein were obtained from 100 pounds of the meal made from 

 whole herring, while the meal made from the waste of salted herring gave 

 11.9 and 42.6 pounds, respectively. 



In 1903 V. Schenke,^ as a part of an extensive investigation of commercial 

 feeding stuffs conducted by the German experiment stations, made an exhaus- 

 tive examination of the subject of fish meal or fish guano, looking toward its 

 use as a stock food. In this report it is stated that up to the middle of the 

 last century fish meal or fish guano was used only for fertilizer purposes, 

 and that it was not until about 1S60 that any work of a scientific nature 

 was done with the idea of using such meal as a foodstuff for animals. Atten- 

 tion is called to the fact that the protein consists mainly of meat fibrin, 

 albumen, and gelatinous substances, the latter in larger proportion than in the 

 flesh of fresh fish because the fish meal is prepared without removing the fish 

 bones. It is also .stated that the fat which remains after the pressing is easily 

 digestible. The ash consists largely of sodium, potassium, and calcium phos- 

 phates, and sodium, potassium, and magnesium chlorids. Experiments con- 

 ducted and literature cited in regard to the digestibility of fish meal showed 

 that the coefficients of digestibility of the chief constituents are high. 



According to V. Schenke the first feeding tests with fish meal were made in 

 1873 and 1874 by Weiske^ and were reported in 1875 and 1876 by Kellner, 

 Schrodt, and Wimmer ; * the test animals were sheep. The investigators con- 

 cluded that the protein of fish meal was digested by herbivorous animals as 

 well as, or better than, the protein from vegetable sources. From 77 to 83 

 per cent of the protein was found to have been digested. Kellner in a later 

 experiment,^ found that sheep digested as much as 90 per cent of the protein, 

 76.4 per cent of the fat, and 15 per cent of the ash. 



Reports of the work of a number of other investigators, extending from this 

 year (1877) to 1902, are cited by V. Schenke, in which studies of the feeding 

 of fish meal to dairy cows, oxen, hogs, sheep, and poultry are recorded. The 

 results were universally favorable in all particulars as to economy in pro- 

 ducing gains in weight, and as to lack of taint or odor of fish in the marketable 

 products from these animals. 



In conclusion this author states that fish meal is a valuable supplementary 

 food for animals, when it is fed with other foods low in protein ; that its most 

 important feature is the high digestibility of the protein and fat and that, 

 further, it imparted no objectionable flavor to milk and butter when used 

 supplementally in rations for dairy cows. 



In a feeding experiment on young pigs, comparing tlie growth obtained by 

 feeding both milk and fish meal with the growth obtained by feeding milk only, 

 Klein " found that smaller quantities of milk with the addition of fish meal gave 

 as good a gain per head as was obtained by feeding larger quantities of milk 

 alone. 



1 Norsk. Landmandsblad, 1903, 22 (3) 38-41. 



2 Landw. Vers. Stat., 1903, 58, .55-64. For full report of this investigation see Die 

 Futtermittel des Handels. P. Paray, Berlin. 



* Wochenbl. d. landw. Ver. i- Grossherzogtum Baden, 1874, p. 318. 



*Journ. f. Landw., 1876, p. 265. 



5 Landw. Vers. Stat, 1877, 20, p. 428. 



«Deut. Landw. Presse, 1907, Si (67), 542, 



