FEED FOR THE COW 147 



milk in a day. This, of course, is an impos- 

 sibility. It is mentioned only to show that a 

 cow cannot be turned out to a straw stack with 

 the expectation that her flow of milk will be 

 maintained. 



June pasture ideal. On the other hand, it is 

 well known that pasture is about as good a ration 

 as we ordinarily find, and for this reason cows 

 usually give a large flow of milk during June 

 and July, because all the elements necessary to 

 maintain the body and manufacture the milk are 

 found in succulent pasture grass. 



What is a balanced ration? When we speak 

 of a balanced ration we mean a ration in which 

 protein, carbohydrates, and ether extracts are 

 combined in about the right proportion. Wolff 

 and Lehmann adopted a standard by which every 

 cow yielding 22 pounds of milk daily should 

 receive a ration containing 29 pounds of dry 

 matter, of which 2.5 pounds should be digestible 

 protein, 13 pounds digestible carbohydrates, and 

 .5 pound digestible ether extract. The nutritive 

 ratio which they adopted was 1:5.7. 



How the nutritive ratio is found. The method 

 of computing the nutritive ratio may be briefly 

 explained as follows: Multiply the digestible 

 ether extract by 2.4 (inasmuch as it is presumed 

 that each pound of ether extract furnishes 2.4 

 times the heat units that are found in one pound 



