1911. 
< \THI£ RURAt NEW-YORKER 
MARYLAND POULTRY QUESTIONS. 
It is customary in this section to have 
poultry houses on concrete walls, with con¬ 
crete floors. The building 10 feet wide, 
eight feet high in front and six feet high 
in rear. These houses are divided into 
sections 18 or 20 feet long, containing 
roosting room with roosts, droppings boards, 
with the nests under the latter. In the 
roosting room is one small window. The 
other division which is the scratching room 
has a curtained front which swings up 
to ceiling in the day and during hot weather 
nil the time. Is there a better house than 
this for poultry and if so what is it and 
how constructed? I would also like to 
know what is the trouble with my S. C. 
W. Leghorn pullets of which I have 200 in 
one house 90 feet long by 10 feet wide and 
constructed as described above. These pul¬ 
lets commenced laying last September and 
by October 1 I was shipping eggs from 
them regularly. By January 10 they were 
yielding a 00 per cent supply of eggs. 
After that date there was a change, and 
they comenced to sit on the roosts much 
of the time; their droppings were not 
right; the combs of some of them changed 
from dark red to a purplish tinge and the 
product fell away from 00 per cent to about 
30 per cent. I gave them my personal at¬ 
tention, feeding as I have always fed, 
wheat, corn, oats, bran, middlings, and corn- 
meal mash, plenty of green food, such as 
mangels and cabbage, with meat meal, grit, 
oyster shell and charcoal always by them. 
I occasionally gave them green cut bone 
and daily a few boiled potatoes. Can any 
one tell me the trouble? 
Maryland. C. F. B. 
From the description given of your 
poultry houses they appear to fill all the 
essential requirements for keeping a flock 
of layers if properly arranged and cared 
for. I do not believe, however in crowd¬ 
ing so many hens in one house 10x90 
feet. If you will remove 100 of your 
poorest layers I am sure you will get 
more eggs from the remaining 200 than 
you arc now getting from the whole 
flock and you would save one-third of 
the feed. The feed you are giving seems 
to be well adapted for egg production if 
properly fed. I surmise that you tried to 
force your birds early in the Winter for 
extra heavy egg production. This prac¬ 
tice seldom pays, as ill effects usually fol¬ 
low which take away the small advantage 
gained temporarily. c. S. G. 
FEEDING SUMMER SILAGE. 
In our experience in feeding cows we 
usually feed silage in Summer, and are 
in fact feeding silage for our rations 
daily at the present time. Our silage is 
made from corn, the best we can grow, 
with the corn cut with the stalk without 
husking, just as the grain commences 
to glaze. We are much in favor of feed¬ 
ing green Alfalfa to our cattle, regard¬ 
ing it as one of the very best feeds. We 
usually feed from racks, cutting the Al¬ 
falfa and feeding in small pasture or 
runway for exercise and fresh air. We 
have grown it for about 20 years, sow¬ 
ing it in our young orchards, cutting it 
three times a year unless the season 
proves jx dry one. I cannot see that this 
crop has been a detriment to the growth 
in our orchard, and we have certainly 
had good crops of Alfalfa. We believe 
in using large silos; our present silos 
are 16 feet in diameter, ann! we use con¬ 
tinually from one silo, taking from the 
top daily so as to keep the feed from 
moulding. E. v. p. 
Massachusetts. 
A silo eight feet inside diameter and 
10 feet high would contain about 1,600 
cubic feet. The average weight of sil¬ 
age at the depth in a silo of that size 
would be about 30 pounds, or 48,000 
pounds, so if 200 pounds per day were 
fed it would last about 160 days. Of 
course the silage at the top would not 
weigh over one-half as much per foot 
as at the bottom which should be taken 
into consideration in feeding. If I were 
to handle this proposition I would erect 
a silo eight feet in diameter and 24 feet 
high so that when the silage had settled 
it would be 20 feet deep. Then when 
ready to feed from it I would cut on 
some clover hay, or if I did not have 
that, put on six inches more or less of 
cut straw, or chaff if I had nothing bet¬ 
ter. This covering I would move about 
first on one side of the silo and then on 
the other so as to protect the surface as 
much as possible as I was taking out 
the silage. Of course in feeding silage 
the cows should have some dry food so 
that if a portion of the' clover hay, straw 
or chaff should get mixed with the sil¬ 
age it would do no harm, and more 
could be added as the covering should be 
fed mixed with the silage. Now the 
feeding of 200 pounds of silage per day 
indicates the keeping of five cows. As 
it is but little more labor to care for 
10 than five why not double the number 
and thus make it perfectly feasible to 
Summer feed silage and make twice the 
milk, money and manure with but little 
more trouble? j. s. woodward. 
MORE ABOUT SELLING CORN SILAGE. 
I do not know of any instance where 
corn silage was sold as a business ven¬ 
ture in this section. We have our or¬ 
chards on the highest parts of the farms, 
cutting up the fields, so that people only 
keep what cows they can tie out. Corn 
silage should be fed as taken from the 
silo, and to my mind would not pay for 
the trouble to try to keep a fresh supply 
for two or three cows. Anyone having four 
or more cows will find it profitable to build 
a silo suitable to the dairy. M. a. 
Burt, N. Y. 
I very much doubt if silage could be 
grown and sold as you suggest, because 
after it was taken out of the silo, it 
would not keep longer than five or six 
days in cold weather, and in warm 
weather it would start to mould in one 
or two days. The fact that it would keep 
only a few days, making it necessary for 
the farmer who wanted to buy it to go 
after it every few days, would make too 
much labor. B. L. M. 
Trumansburg, N. Y. 
A small quantity of silage has been sold 
in this part of the country at different 
times among the neighbors, but I have 
personally no experience along this line. I 
would think the best kind of silage could 
be made where it was made in large silos, 
but in warm weather I fear it would be a 
little hard for the consumer to keep it 
longer than a few days, as it would be 
very apt to heat; however, if it was not 
far to haul, and both buyer and seller 
were fixed to handle it in the most con¬ 
venient manner, there is no doubt in my 
mind that it would be a success. As to 
the price per ton obtained, I do not re¬ 
member having heard any price named. It 
would seem to me, if a person was going 
to make it a business to sell silage to dif¬ 
ferent parties, he should also deliver it, 
making a round every other day or so, and 
if the business would warrant, every day 
might not be too often. 
Maryland. sam’l. hersiibeuger. 
About 11 years ago, while superintendent 
of a large dairy farm in Connecticut, I 
purchased a silo full of silage. The barns 
had burned and owner wished to sell silage, 
and also wanted work for his team, so I 
made this agreement with him. lie was 
to deliver one ton daily at 9 a. in., price 
12 cents per cubic foot; there proved to 
be 00 pounds to the foot making $4.80 per 
ton delivered on the feeding floor. Usually 
a cubic foot will not weigh much above 40 
pounds, but this silo was very deep, and 
was well packed and also contained an im¬ 
mense amount of ears, white Southern 
corn; many slices of ears measured over 
three inches across. As to price, it must 
depend entirely on quality; Eureka silage 
would sell, were I the purchaser, for about 
05 per cent of price of Learning, yellow 
dents or white Hints and 50 per cent of 
price of Longfellow or yellow flints, pro¬ 
vided of course all were properly handled 
and ears left on. Undoubtedly such a 
business would pay were one located near 
farmers who had to buy roughage in large 
quantities, and who .believed in silage. Many 
milkmen near large cities buy all feed, but 
are prejudiced against silage and turnips; 
why, I don’t know, for either one, if prop¬ 
erly fed, makes best of feed and no poor 
results. To sell silage one must have 
regular demand, as after a silo is opened 
it should have some taken off daily. Per¬ 
sonally, were I to buy feed for cows, I 
would buy silage 305 days in the year, 
could I get it, in preference to all other 
feed, but silage is easiest feed to raise 
(value considered) and where a man raises 
any feed he would naturally raise silage 
if he were not prejudiced against it, and 
buy hay, which is more easily handled 
when drawn from a distance, and can be 
hauled at eonvient time, while silage would 
have to be hauled daily, as it will sour 
within 48 to 60 hours, and will not be as 
good if out of silo more than 12 hours, and 
then should be kept in tight box. I should 
say Learning corn silage should sell for 
25 per cent of price of good stock hay, de¬ 
livered. Such a business would not pay 
here, as farmers buy but little roughage. 
This business is more adapted to near city 
farms where there are dairymen buying all 
their feed. f. b. parsons. 
Massachusetts. 
FEEDING VALUE OF CORN. 
In Mr. Duekwall’s article on grinding feed 
on page 303, he speaks of the comparative 
values of meal made from shelled corn, and 
corn and cob meal. I do not wish to ap¬ 
pear contentious, but it seems to me there 
must be something wrong with the figures 
he gives. He says 68 pounds of corn and 
cob meal contains 3.08 pounds of protein 
and has an energy value of 48.99 therms, 
while a bushel of meal from shelled corn 
weighing 56 pounds contains 3.80 pounds 
protein and has an energy value of 49.75 
therms. The figures as given show that 
when we shell the corn we get a given 
food and energy value, but if we add the 
cobs from which the corn was shelled we 
have less food and energy than just from 
the corn. In other words, adding the cobs, 
which certainly must contain some heating 
material or they would not burn, will take 
away food from the corn, which to my 
mind is manifestly impossible. l. c. p. 
As stated in the article referred to, tne 
figures given were taken from Farmers’ 
Bulletin No. 346, and are for net energy 
values; that is, these figures show what 
the animal gets from the feeds, not what 
the chemist finds in them; in other words, 
these figures indicate the digestible and not 
the total nutrients. For instance, the aver¬ 
age composition of dent corn, giving total 
ingredients, is protein 10.3, carbohydrates 
82.6%, while the digestible ingredients are 
protein 67.9, carbohydrates 78%. These 
figures arc from Farmers’ Bulletin No. 22, 
in part. In regard to corn and cob meal, 
on page 391 of “Profitable Stock Feeding,” 
by FI. R. Smith, corn colis are assigned the 
following total compositions : I’rotein 2.4, 
carbohydrates 55%, and on page 398 are 
the digestible nutrients in corn cobs as fol¬ 
lows : Protein 0.4, carbohydrates 52.5%, 
not a very good showing but slightly better 
than wheat straw in carbohydrates, whose 
value is about 36%. The great muscular 
energy necessary to chew and digest corn¬ 
cobs and wheat straw render them value¬ 
less when fed alone, but as roughage or to 
lighten up concentrated feeds they have 
some practical value. It is not the total 
amounts of nutrients in a given feed but 
the amount available for the use of the 
animal after deducting what is lost in the 
excreta and the amount needed to supply 
the energy for mastication and digestion. 
Digestible nutrients are a percentage of 
the total nutrients in any given feed, and 
such a percentage is called a digestion 
coefficient. These digestion coefficients are 
determined by means of an elaborate and 
expensive apparatus called a respiration 
calorimeter, one being located at the Penn¬ 
sylvania State College. We must not place 
too great a reliance on these values and 
figures; in most cases they are averages, 
in some cases estimates and are to be re¬ 
garded as tentative, and to serve as guides, 
rather than to be followed slavishly in se¬ 
lecting feeds or compounding rations. 
W. E. DUCK WALL. 
Tankage for Hogs. 
Is tankage a substitute for skim-milk 
for feeding hogs? c. c. 
New York. 
Tankage is a very desirable addition to a 
ration for growing or fattening hogs where 
a supply of protein is not available in the 
form of skim-milk. It is more expensive 
than the ordinary mill feeds and it is not 
necessary to use more than 10 per cent of 
the concentrated feed in the form of tank¬ 
age. H. IX. WING. 
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