COMMERCIAL CONCENTRATES 381 



ful, however, whether oats should form a large part of the ration 

 throughout the feeding period. 



Peas and Beans. — Various kinds of peas and beans are nearly 

 always too high in price to be used as the sole concentrate for fat- 

 tening sheep and lambs, but being rich in protein, they can often 

 be profitably utilized as a supplement to carbonaceous feeds. Field 

 peas and soybeans are unusually palatable and when added to less 

 palatable feeds serve as a means for increasing the consumption 

 of feed. 



Commercial Concentrates. — Linseed and cottonseed cake or 

 meal are used extensively in sheep feeding for balancing rations too 

 low in protein. They both have practically the same value for this 

 purpose. Cottonseed meal contains more digestible protein than the 

 cold-pressed' cottonseed cake. 



Wheat bran, wheat middlings, gluten feed, dried distillers' 

 grains, fish meal, dried blood, and tankage are not widely used 

 in the United States in the rations of fattening sheep and lambs. 

 Wheat bran is palatable and if price warrants it, it may be used 

 to " lighten " the grain part of the ration at the beginning of the 

 feeding period. Gluten feed is not palatable and hence very 

 little of it is used. Morrison and Kleinheinz " found that tankage 

 mixed with 9 parts of coarsely ground corn was readily eaten by 

 lambs and when fed with corn and poor quality, over-ripe blue- 

 grass hay, 10 per cent tankage was equal to 18 per cent linseed 

 meal in balancing the ration. 



Beet by-products are carbonaceous in nature. Dried beet pulp 

 compares favorably with corn as a fattening feed, and the wet pulp 

 is very effective for fattening old ewes. 



Various molasses products have been used to limited extent 

 and' in the main are reported to be appetizing. 



Wheat screenings, an elevator and flouring-mill by-product, 

 are a complete sheep feed. That is, on account of chaff and bits 

 of straw in them, they can, if necessary, be used without any 

 roughage. Their fattening value is variable and indefinite because 

 they do not run even in the proportion of grain and seeds they con- 

 tain. Wevertheless, feeders who operate on a large scale learn to 

 judge their feeding value fairly closely and they like to use them 

 when they are to be had at reasonable prices. 



""Feeds and Feeding," 1916. 



