M6 PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS 



Concentrates. — The common concentrates used on American 

 dairy farms are cereals and mill-refuse feeds, starch or glucose ref- 

 use feeds, brewers' and distillers' feeds, and oil meals, esj^ecially 

 linseed meal and cotton-seed meal. The amounts of these feeds 

 that can be fed to dairy cows with profit will depend upon the price 

 of the feeds, the production of the cows, and the prices obtained 

 for the dairy products. In general, the carbohydrates of feed 

 rations are supplied by farm-grown crops, while nitrogenous feeds 

 are largely purchased, except when leguminous crops are grown. 

 By the culture of crops of the latter class the amount of protein 

 feeds that it will be necessary to purchase will be reduced to a 

 minimum. Wheat bran may lie partially replaced, nearly ton for 

 ton, by carefully-cured alfalfa bay, or by five to six tons of pea- 



Fig. 50. — Alfalfa is, as a rule, fed in racks in the corrals (feeding yards) to milch cowa in 

 the Western States. 



vine silage. Roughly speaking, the cereals may be considered 

 of equal feeding value for dairy cows, and of similar value to bran 

 or shorts, in rations as ordinarily fed. Cotton-seed meal, gluten 

 meal, and linseed meal likewise possess nearly equal value, with the 

 first two feeds occasionally ahead. The comparative value of feed- 

 ing stuffs depends, however, to a large extent on the combination 

 in which they are fed, a starchy feed being of greater value to a 

 farmer having a good supply of protein feeds than to one who has 

 mainly starchy feeds to select from. The feed-unit system fur- 

 nishes a convenient and very satisfactory method of comparing 

 the value of different kinds of feeds for dairy cows (p. 79). 



The quantities of grain feeds fed by American dairy farmers 

 vary considerably, from a few pounds to fifteen or more pounds 



