414 Fish Meal as Food for Live Stock. [Aug., 



Before the War the production of fish meal had become a 

 considerable industry at the larger fishing ports of the United 

 Kingdom. In 1913, out of 40,000 tons 

 Fish Meal as Food p^,Qj^^gj^ 3q qqq ^.^^.^ exported to the 

 r ive oc . (Continent, mainly to Germany, where fish 

 meal found a ready sale. In this country it has been used in 

 steadily increasing quantities to feed pigs and poultry, but has 

 been little employed for the food of other classes of live stock. 

 Manufacturers will be obliged to resume the export trade unless 

 British farmers will recognise the value of this product as a feed- 

 ing stuff. Purchasers should distinguish between fish meal 

 manufactured for use as a feeding stuff and the manurial article 

 sold under the title of fish guano. The fish meal for feedihg is 

 made from fresh offal, together with whole fish that are unsale- 

 able owing to a glut in the market. Care is taken that the 

 ingredients be wholesome, but in the preparation of fish guano 

 the question of suitability for animal feeding does not arise, and 

 this product should therefore be avoided as a foodstuff. The 

 composition of fish meal varies, but it should contain over 50 per 

 cent, of proteins (albuminoids) and 25 per cent, or so of ash, 

 which mainly consists of phosphate of lime. It is, therefore, 

 specially rich in proteins and phosphate of lime, flesh and bone 

 formers. Owing to the small proportion of carbohydrates, fish 

 meal cannot exercise its full value unless it is used together with 

 other feeding stuffs rich in this constituent, as for example, 

 green fodders, roots and grain foods, or the more starchy feeding 

 stuffs like maize and milling offals. 



It has been objected that fish meal taints the carcass, but this 

 occurs only where it has been given in undue proportion. A 

 rough but useful general rule is that fish meal should not form 

 more than about one -eighth of the total dry food consumed. 

 This will produce pork and bacon of excellent quality, quite free 

 from fishy taint, provided that the fish meal is good and not too 

 rich in the fish oil which carries the fishy taint. For this 

 reason careful manufacturers reject herrings as a constituent of 

 fish meal. 



In order to secure the essentials just noted, the Association of 

 Fish Meal, Fish Guano and Fish Oil Manufacturers — represent- 

 ing nearly all the manufacturers of fish meal in Great Britain — 

 has agreed to produce, from white fish only, a meal to be sold 

 as " white fish meal," and to conform with the following limits 

 as to composition : — 



