CHAPTER X. 



HOW TO PEED SILAGE. 



Silage Is eaten with a relish by all kinds of farm animals, 

 dairy and beef cattle, horses, mules, sheep, goats, swine, and 

 even poultry. It should never be fed as sole roughage to any 

 one of these classes of stock, however, but always in connection 

 with some dry roughage. The nearer maturity the corn Is when 

 cut for the silo the more silage may safely be fed at a time, but 

 it is always well to avoid feeding it excessively. 



The silo should always be emptied from the top in horizontal 

 layers, and the surface kept level, so as to expose as little silage 

 as possible to the air. It should be fed out sufficiently rapidly 

 to avoid spoiling of the silage; in ordinary northern winter 

 weather a layer a couple of Inches deep should be fed off daily. 



Silage for MUch Cows. 



Silage is par excellence a cow feed, , says Prof. Woll in his 

 Book on Silage. Since the Introduction of the silo in this 

 country, the dairyman, more than any other class of farmers, 

 have been among the most enthusiastic siloists, and up to the 

 present time a, larger number of silos are found in dairy dis- 

 tricts than in any other regions where animal husbandry is a 

 prominent industry. As with other farm animals, cows fed 

 silage should receive other roughage in the shape of com stalks, 

 hay, etc. The quantities of silage fed should not e^cceed forty, 

 or at outside, fifty pounds per day per head. It is possible 

 that a maximum allowance of only 25 or 30 pounds per head daily 

 is to be preferred where the keeping quality of the milk is an 

 important consideration, especially if the silage was made from 

 somewhat immature com. The silage may be given in one or 

 two feeds daily, and, in case of milch cows always after milking, 

 and not before or during same, as the peculiar silage odor may, 

 in the latter case, reappear in the milk. (See below.) 



Silage exerts a. very beneficial influence on the- secretion of 

 milk. Where winter dairying is practiced, cows will usually 

 drop considerably in milk toward spring, if fed on dry feed, 

 causing a loss of milk through the whole remaining portion of 

 the lactation period. If silage is fed there will be no such marked 



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