Feeding Dairy Cattle 



them up as wheat straw. This shows conclusively that the 

 hulls are not worth drawing home. 



BUCKWHEAT PEED 



Buckwheat feed is a mixture of buckwheat hulls and 

 buckwheat middlings and is valuable in proportion to the 

 amount of middlings which it contains. A buckwheat feed 

 is subject to the feed inspection law and must be licensed in 

 New York State and should be subject to the same law in 

 any state as any manufactured feed. In many places small 

 millers are selling the buckwheat feed without license and 

 without guaranteeing the analysis or naming the ingredients. 

 Mixing in such worthless hulls with the middlings is bad 

 practice. The only way for farmers to combat it is to refuse 

 the feed and demand the clear middlings unmixed with the 

 hulls. Sometimes mixing of the hulls is somewhat covered 

 up by regrinding the hulls so as to deceive the purchaser as 

 to the amount of hulls present in the feed. 



BUCKWHEAT MIDDLINGS 



There is no feed much better for milk production than 

 good buckwheat middlings unmixed and undiluted with hulls. 

 The amount of digestible protein in buckwheat middlings is 

 al)Out 24 per cent, as compared with 21.6 per cent, in gluten 

 feed. The total digestible nutrients in one ton of buckwheat 

 middlings is 1532 and in gluten feed 1614. so it is seen that the 

 buckwheat middlings are well up to the value of gluten feed. 

 When made in a good local mill the value is likely to be fully 

 as high if not higher than these figures represent. 



A study of the analyses of buckwheat feeds as given in 

 the last Geneva Experiment Station bulletin on Feed Inspec- 

 tion shows a tremendous variation in the composition of 

 buckwheat feed. One guarantee is as low as 5 per cent, 

 protein whereas on the other end of the variation we find a 

 feed guaranteeing 20 per cent, protein. Others guaranteed 

 18 per cent, with one or two at 10 per cent. Good straight 

 middlings apparently run about 30 per cent, total protein. 

 It seems to me that the best practice for millers is to throw 

 the shucks away and sell good straight buckwheat middlings. 



RICE AND ITS BY-PRODUCTS 



Of course very little rice will ever be used as such for 

 animal food because of its great value as a human food, but 

 there seems to be some rice bran and rice polish on the mar- 

 ket, both of which are good feeds and desirable to buy if one 

 has the opportunity. Rice bran is low in protein and differs 



Page One Hundred Thirty-four 



