19*20.] Feeding Stuffs in October. 



FEEDING STUFFS IN OCTOBER. 



Professor T. B. Wood, C.B.E., M.A., F.R.S., 

 Animal Nutrition Institute, Cambridge University. 



Since last month, cereal feeding stuff's are slightly cheaper, 

 but oil seed cakes on the other hand are slightly dearer. The 

 •cheapest cereals are maize and coarse middlings, which now 

 cost only a traction over 2d. per pound of starch equivalent. 

 Palm kernel cake has gone up steadily in price since the early 

 summer, when it was only £& per ton. It is still, however, the 

 cheapest concentrated feeding stuff on the market, costing even 

 at its present price of £12 10s. per ton slightly under ljd. per 

 pound of starch equivalent. 



During the month several correspondents have inquired as 

 to the digestibility of certain feeding stuffs for young animals. 

 The digestibility figures on which the starch equivalents given 

 in the Table are based have been determined in all cases by 

 •experiments on adult animals. There is no definite knowledge 

 available as to the digestibility of feeding stuffs for young 

 .animals. In the present state of our knowledge the only safe 

 way of feeding young animals is to include in their diet only 

 those feeding stuffs which experience has shown to give good 

 results. These foods will no doubt vary considerably in the 

 cost per pound of starch equivalent; the Table will show which 

 of them are cheaper. 



The description of the manufacture of fish meal given in last 

 .month's Notes was not quite clear in all details. For making 

 fish meal for feeding purposes, only white fish is used. This 

 kind of fish contains only a small proportion of oil, and extrac- 

 tion of the oil is therefore not necessary. 



The discrepancies between the results obtained by various 

 •experimenters with palm kernel meal have given rise to many 

 inquiries. So far as the writer can determine, the discrepancies 

 are due to the fact that two kinds of palm kernel meal are on 

 the market. Palm kernel cake meal, that is to say, palm 

 -kernel cake (made by pressing out the oil) which has been 

 finely ground to meal, has always given good results. Palm 

 kernel meal made by grinding the raw material and extracting 

 the oil chemically is a much less satisfactory feeding stuff. It 

 contains only about 1 per cent, of oil,- whereas the ground cake 

 -contains 6 per cent. Buyers should see that they get palm 

 ikernel cake meal. 



