154 



Rations for Farm Stock. 



4. The bare maintenance diet of a full-grown average-sized 

 ox or dry cow is about 14 lb. of digestible dry matter a day, 

 on which it neither gains nor loses weight. The same is 

 sufficient for an average-sized adult sheep for a week. In 

 fattening, or when yielding a full supply of milk, cows and 

 sheep will generally eat half as much again, that is, 21 lb. of 

 digestible matter, but rarely more. The maintenance diet of 

 an ordinary cart-horse when not at work is from 10 to 12 lb. of 

 digestible dry matter, and when in full work about 21 lb. 



Daily Rations for Cows in Full Milk. 



Good pasture grass in May has an albuminoid ratio as 

 narrow as 1 to 4, which two months later is widened to 1 to 7 ;.. 

 hence we see how excellently adapted it is for spring-born 

 lambs, calves and foals, and for milking cows, ewes and mares 

 during the early part of the summer, and why it should be 

 improved for them later on by an addition of more albuminoid 

 matter. .Up to the end of June, then, good pastures supply food 

 sufficiently high in albuminoids to enable the cow to milk at her 

 best, but by the end of July the albuminoids being only 1 to 7 

 of carbohydrates instead of 1 to 5 or 6 (about what is required 

 by a cow in full milk), and later on still less, the albuminoids 

 should be brought up to the right standard by the addition of 

 decorticated cotton cake for all summer and autumn calving 

 cows soon after they have calved, thus : — 



lb. Albds. Fat. Carbohydrates.. 



104 Grass (in August) ... = 2'o8 lb. '52 lb. 14*68 lb. 



2\ Decorticated Cotton Cake — "92 "25 '47 



77 X 2-4 = 1-85 



3 "OP 17'OQ 



Ratio 1 to 5.6 (nearly). 



For cows that have calved in winter and early spring, and by 

 this time are naturally going off their milking, this addition of 

 cake is unnecessary, though it would benefit the land ; neither 

 is it necessary when cows are put on aftermath full of clover. 

 Commencing with 1 lb. a day in July, the cake would gradually 

 be increased on ordinary pasture to 2-§ lb. by the end of 

 August. Some pastures produce very soft butter in June, and 

 an addition of 1 lb. of decorticated cotton cake, though not 



