Feeding Dairy Cattle 



be scarcer and scarcer as the feeding season advances. First 

 let us look into the value of wheat as a loughage, then 

 examine the value of wheat itself as a food for animals and 

 lastly study the by-products. 



WHEAT AS A GREEN CROP 



The wheat plant does not stand very high as a source 

 of feed in the form of roughage. In only one place does it 

 stand out. As a soiling crop it is early in the spring. Only 

 one other crop can be cut earlier and that is rye. For the 

 few farmers who depend wholly on soiling crops with no 

 pasture a small acreage of wheat will give them a green 

 crop for use early in the spring following rye. This crop 

 of wheat will fit in well and help out with alfalfa and clover 

 to get a succession of soiling crops up to the time when 

 the first crop of peas and oats is ready. It has the further 

 advantage of being a crop that has a value for grain if it 

 is not all used up as a soiling crop. 



WHEAT AS A FEED 



Ordinarily wheat is too valuable to be fed as a grain 

 in the same sense that one feeds corn or oats or barley. 

 If, however, for any reason the wheat is unfit for milling 

 or if one can buy a lot of wheat reasonably it has an 

 excellent feeding value when ground and mixed with <:)ther 

 feeds for a ration. In this respect it is probably fully equal 

 to corn or l^arl-ey for feeding dairy co'\\-s or other animals. 

 Ground wheat is not so palatable as corn or oats or barley 

 because when ground up it forms a sticky mass in the mouth. 



Salvage wheat is the name given to wheat that has been 

 damaged by fire or water in elevator fires or wheat that has 

 been damaged in the holds of ships when transported l)-s' 

 water. This salvage wheat is nearly as valuable for feeding 

 as the best of wheat and sometimes very good bargains in it 

 may be had by farmers who are alert in buying in the larger 

 cities where there are grain elevators. AVheat is particularlv 

 valuable for poultry. 



An experiment carried on at the Wisconsin Experiment 

 Station has demonstrated that animals cannot l>e grown in 

 a satisfactory manner on the products of the wheat plant 

 alone. A group of cows was fed on wheat straw and a 

 grain ration made up of wheat and its by-prodticts. Another 

 group was fed on a ration made up entireh" from the oat 

 plant and another on a ration made up entirely from the corn 

 plant, and a fourth group was fed on a ration made up from 

 feeds selected from all three plants, corn, wheat and oats. 



Page One Hundred Twenty-eight 



