Feeding Dairy Cattle 



A Study of many rations fed by many different feeders 

 will show that they do not depart widely from these 

 methods, and the feeds listed in these rations will cover those 

 generally used. 



The following is suggested as a grain mixture for the 



summer: 



500 pounds hominy 



500 pounds distillers' dried grains 



300 pounds wheat bran 



300 pounds gluten feed 



200 pounds oil meal 



200 pounds ground oats 



XIX. Feeding Fat Into MUk 



EVER since interest in high production records was stim- 

 ulated by the dairy breed associations, breeders have 

 looked for ways and means of raising the normal per- 

 centage of fat in a given individual cow's milk for seven, 

 thirty, or longer periods of days, including semi-official and 

 official yearly records. The writer has never yet seen but 

 one way of doing this successfully. Many breeders have 

 been sure that they had a way, but no one way has been suc- 

 cessful enough to give that breeder any lead over others. 

 And so far as the writer is aware no method has ever been 

 tested out carefully and scientifically except one. That one 

 method is to fatten an animal before the testing period and 

 then feed her carefully so that she will lose her body fat and 

 put it into the pail. This method has been described in a 

 previous paper and is really so well known among breeders 

 who test that it is unnecessary to give it much more 

 consideration here. 



And after all, what would the economic effect of a suc- 

 cessful method to feed fat into milk in a short time test 

 amount to? The partial success of feeding fat into milk by 

 means of fattening the cow before testing, has already 

 brought seven-day records into more or less disrepute as 

 real evidence of production. The law of conservation of 

 energy holds true no less with animals than with machines, 

 and if a method of changing body substance into milk fat is 

 found, the same amount of food must be used to produce the 

 body substance at some time in the course of the period 

 between the birth of two calves. 



No, in the opinion of the writer, breeders who seek to 



find a method to increase the percentage of fat in the milk of 



. any individual for any period of time, short of the whole life 



vof the individual, is not doing himself or the breed any real 



Page Eighty-eight 



