Feeding Dairy Cattle 



XXVn. Barley and Its Products 



FARMERS have a very favorable crop in barley. I 

 sometimes think that its value as compared with corn 

 for feeding purposes is not realized so well in this 

 country as it is in the old countries. Probably this is true 

 because corn grows so easily and under ordinary circum- 

 stances the difiference between the price of bark)' and the 

 price of corn is not great. When there is a difference in 

 price considerable money can be saved in feeding if one has 

 taken advantage of the barley market. 



In feeding pigs ground barley is particularly valuable. 

 It is a close competitor of corn. One experiment at the Wis- 

 consin Experiment Station in the past year or two has shown 

 that ground barley and whey appear to supplement each 

 other exceedingly well in the growing and fattening of pigs. 

 While we are thinking of barley particularly as a food for 

 dairy cattle yet it is worth while to call attention to its value 

 for other animals as well as for the cow in milk. 



Ground or rolled barley is a very valuable feed for horses 

 and it can be made one of the ingredients of a very success- 

 ful growing ration. As a mixture it would be hard to beat 

 equal parts of ground barley, ground oats and corn meal with 

 lo per cent, by weight of oil meal to put good healthy growth 

 on calves. 



In regard to its value for dairy cattle an interesting trial 

 at the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station may be 

 reported here. Two groups of six cows each averaging 

 about looo pounds in live weight were fed for two periods 

 of six weeks each. Sixty per cent, of the grain mixture fed 

 to the first lot during the first period was ground barley. 

 At the same time the second lot was getting a grain mixture, 

 sixty per cent, of which was ground corn. The ingredients 

 of the rations were otherwise the same. At the end of the 

 first six weeks period the rations were reversed, the first lot 

 getting the corn ration and the second lot the ration contain- 

 ing the barley. The rate of feed was one pound of grain daily 

 for every pound of butterfat produced in a week by each cow. 

 All the cows were fed alfalfa hay and corn silage for rough- 

 age. The proportion of silage to hay was three pounds of 

 corn silage to one pound of alfalfa hay fed dailv for every 

 loo pounds of live weight. 



The ground barley mixture was made up of 600 pounds 

 of ground barley, 150 pounds of wheat bran, 100 pounds of 



Page One Hundred Eighteen 



