ADJUSTING THE RATION 231 



Organic Composition of Milk ' 



This has now been carefully worked out and published in 

 Minnesota Station Bulletin 130, from which the following 

 tables are taken. 



A number of feeding standards have been suggested, but the 

 one developed by Haecker, of the Minnesota Station, is the most 

 workable. Haecker was the first investigator to consider the 

 maintenance of the cow separate from the milk, to recognize the 

 quality of the milk as well as the quantity, and to reduce the 

 whole to a unity basis. 



Adjusting the Ration. — There is what may be called a 

 triple balance in the matter of feeding dairy cows, (a) the 

 balance of the amount of roughage to the size of the cow, (h) the 

 balance of the amount of grain to be fed to the amount and 

 quality of the milk the cow is giving, and (c) the balance of the 

 chemical nutrients to the needs of the cow. 



On the average a cow will eat 2 pounds of hay or its equiva- 

 lent per hundred pounds per day. A cow weighing 900 pounds 

 will eat 18 pounds of hay very readily and one of 1400 pounds 

 should consume 28 pounds of hay per day. Ordinarily, how- 

 ever, the lighter weight cows, if they are of dairy type, will eat 

 more for their weight than heavier ones. '\Miere com silage is 

 fed due allowance must be made for the high water content of it. 



Silage as now usually made from comparatively mature 

 com contains about 26 per cent dry matter, thus 3 pounds will 

 contain 0.78 pound dry matter, which is roughly the equivalent 

 of 1 pound of hay (0.87 pound of dry matter). 



^Minn. Bui. 130. 



