FEEDING EXPERIMENTS WITH COWS. 125 



grain mixture, composed of 200 pounds wheat bran, 100 pounds 

 cotton seed meal, and 100 pounds linseed meal. This grain 

 mixture carried somewhat more protein and a little less fat than 

 the Union Grains in comparison with which it was fed. Dur- 

 ing all the periods the weights of silage hay and grain fed each 

 animal remained constant. The cows doing the maximum work 

 received 8 pounds per day of grain ; the others were fed less. 



From the herd there were selected 18 animals, 5 Holsteins, 6 

 Jerseys, 2 Guernseys, 1 Ayrshire and 4 grades. They were 

 from 3 to 6 months in milk and were all, according to their 

 records, doing a moderate amount of work and were fairly 

 uniform in their milk flow from day to day. 



These 18 animals were gradually changed from the oil meal 

 mixture to the Union Grains and after 2 weeks were gradually 

 changed back to the oil meal ration. The average yields of 

 milk on the oil meal ration for 7 days prior to the change to 

 Union Grains and 7 days yields after the return to the oil meal 

 rations are compared in the table with 7 days in which the 

 Union Grains were fed. 



The table on page 126 shows the milk yield of 18 cows for 

 2 periods of 7 days on oil meal ration, and one period of 7 days 

 on Union Grains. The hay and silage fed was the same in all 

 periods. The same weight of grain mixture was fed in all the 

 periods. 



The individual cows were -not tested for butter fat. but the 

 herd milk was tested in each period and ran from 4.1 to 4.3 per 

 cent of butter fat during the test, showing that it was uniform 

 in quality. With the exception of the cow Fan all of the cows 

 gave more milk in the second period on Union Grain than in 

 the average of the first and third periods on oil meal. 



The test was not as satisfactory as desirable because of dis- 

 turbing factors in change of milkers. But these changes did 

 not work in favor of the Union Grains, so that there is no reason 

 to doubt the tendency of the results and so far as this one 

 experiment goes the Union Grains showed themselves a better 

 food for milk production than the oil meal ration. The Union 

 Grains cost somewhat more, however, than the mixture of oil 

 meal and bran. 



