1284 
•Pit RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
Live Stock Matters 
Conducted By Prof. F. C. Minkler 
Feeding Moldy Silage 
Is moldy silage injurious to cows? I 
have a silo 14x.33ft. I am feeding 12 
head at present. How much should be 
fed to cows in milk; also to heifers? Can 
it be fed to herd sire? The silage seems 
to mold in spots. It was well trampled. 
New Jersey. J. A. d. 
Moldy silage, or, in fact, silage of 
known quality cannot be fed to horses 
with safety. As a matter of fact, moldy 
silage is as dangerous for horses as bul¬ 
lets from a carefully aimed rifle. Horses 
do not require succulent feed. It is al¬ 
most impossible to fed silage without in¬ 
volving more or less mold or decomposi¬ 
tion. The wise man never feeds silage to 
his idle or working horses. It is seldom 
that silage- proves injurious for feeding 
dairy cattle or beef steers. Ruminant 
animals are less susceptible to such diges¬ 
tive disorders as may be occasioned by 
moldy silage, and I should not hesitate 
to feed the silage in question to the cows 
you refer to. Generally dairy cows in 
milk eould safely be fed from 30 to 35 lbs. 
of silage daily, and young animals could 
be fed practically all that they could con¬ 
sume with relish in two daily feedings 
morning and night. You are aware of the 
fact, no doubt, that there is always a cer¬ 
tain amount of decayed silage in the top 
of the silo, especially where some time 
elapses between the time of filling and 
the date when it is desired to use this 
succulent material for Winter feeding. 
This, of course, cannot be fed to any ani¬ 
mal. Whatever you do, keep the silage 
away from your horses. 
If the herd bull is fed silage, the 
amount fed should be restricted to about 
half as much as one feeds to the dairy 
cows. Bulls confined in box stalls are 
very apt to become lazy and paunchy, and 
the use of excessive amounts of silage 
only exaggerates this condition. The 
amount of hay and silage should be re¬ 
stricted, and the bulls should be fed some 
bulky feed that carries a generous amount 
of oats and bran. 
Thriftless Pigs 
I have two May pigs which do not seem 
to thrive. They are just about half as 
large as they should be. They eat but 
very little, and refuse whole corn abso¬ 
lutely. I have been feeding milk, white 
middlings, cornmeal and a patent hog 
mixture and powders. They are in good 
flesh and spirits, but weigh only about 
100 lbs., whereas in former years same 
shotes would weigh 150 lbs. Can you 
give me advice as to what to do? 
Pennsylvania. w. a. ii. 
The chances are that the pigs in ques¬ 
tion which failed to thrive and gain reg¬ 
ularly are either infested with internal 
parasites or are being annoyed by lice. If 
they cough repeatedly they maye be in¬ 
fested with lung worms. I would sug¬ 
gest that the pigs be given a thorough 
washing •with crude oil, which can be ap¬ 
plied by means of a scrubbing brush or 
an appropriate spray. If the pigs are not 
too heavy, a barrel can be filled half full 
of water and a coatihg of two or three 
inches of crude oil poured on top of the 
water, and the pigs can be dipped into 
this: They should be held in the solution 
a full minute in order fully to destroy the 
vermin. I have very little faith in the 
patent remedies that you have been using, 
and think that ordinarily they fail to 
give the results desired. 
If it develops that the animals are in¬ 
fested with internal worms or parasites, 
then I should recommend the use of tur¬ 
pentine, the dosage being a tablespoonful 
of turpentine diluted in a pint of milk, 
this amount being enough for a pig weigh¬ 
ing 100 lbs. Deny the pigs all feed for 24 
hours and then let them have the turpen¬ 
tine-milk mixture from their regular 
trough. Do not try to drench the pigs. 
The chances are that these pigs were 
stunted during their early development, 
and it is next to impossible so to feed 
animals of this character that they will 
gain and put on flesh profitably. I am 
inclined to believe that I should sell 
them when they weight 125 lbs. and take 
no chances of feeding even low-priced 
grain to animals of this type. I should 
provide them with a mineral mixture con¬ 
sisting of equal parts of charcoal, salt, 
bonemeal, sulphur and ground limestone, 
to which has been added a small amount 
of copperas which has been dissolved in 
■water and sprinkled over the mineral mix¬ 
ture. The ration that you are feeding 
is nutritious and palatable, for there is 
nothing better than cornmeal, milk and 
middlings for pigs of this age. The addi¬ 
tion of digester tankage in case you do 
not have a sufficient amount of milk 
W'ould increase its palatability and pro¬ 
vide essential protein. 
Ration for Heifers 
I have a herd of 18 registered Hol- 
steins, consisting of two-year-olds, in 
milk, and the rest heifers due to calve in 
Winter and Spring, and three heifers not 
bred. For feed I have a silo filled with 
a mixture of Soy bean vines which grew 
with the silage corn, every stalk of which 
carries an ear about 12 in. long, with 16 
rows of heavy, well-matured corn. For 
roughage I have plenty of first, second 
and third crop Alfalfa, together with 
some Timothy and Alfalfa mixed. Ow¬ 
ing to the heavy growth of my silage 
corn I have about two acres to husk, and 
can use the dry fodder, if advisable, or 
cut it up for bedding. I would like to 
have a satisfactory grain ration to go 
with the above, and also the amounts of 
the different feeds the cattle ought to con¬ 
sume. J. F. M. 
New York. 
Your two-year-old registered Holstein 
heifers, as well as the young Ilolsteins 
due to calve during the coming Winter 
and Spring, should be fed generously dur¬ 
ing the Winter in order that they may 
gain in flesh and develop normally. I 
should allow all of the heifers all of the 
silage that they will clean up morning and 
evening, and also let them have all the 
Alfalfa or clover hay that they will con¬ 
sume with .relish. The following grain 
ration is best suited for the heifers in 
milk: Corn or hominy meal, 300 lbs.; 
ground oats, 150 lbs.; wheat bran, 150 
lbs.; gluten feed, 150 lbs. ; germ meal, 75 
lbs.; oilmeal, 125 lbs.; buckwheat mid¬ 
dlings, 200 lbs.; salt, 15 lbs. 
I should allow 1 lb. of this grain mix¬ 
ture for each 3 lbs. of milk produced per 
day per animal. A similar ration could 
be used for the heifers due to calve. For 
This cut is made from a snap-shot 
photo showing a patch of buckwheat 
along the roadside fronting an apple or¬ 
chard on the Sugar Grove Fruit Farm, 
Monroe County, N. Y. R. J. Strasen- 
the heifers not bred it should be as fol¬ 
lows : Ground oats or bran, 300 lbs.; 
corn or hominy meal, 300 lbs.; buckwheat 
middlings, 200 lbs.; oilmeal, 200 lbs.. 
I should feed the heifers from 5 to 7 
lbs. of this mixture daily, depending, of 
course, upon their condition and general 
vigor. One loses nothing by keeping heif¬ 
ers of this character gaining and growing 
during their entire development period. 
I like to see a lot of flesh on growing 
calves or dry animals. In view of the 
fact that your silage is mixed with Soy 
beans, I have used a minimum amount of 
protein concentrates in this combination. 
Wheat bran could be substituted for 
ground oats unless by chance you have 
these products on hand. I should allow 
the animals free access to the corn fod¬ 
der, preferably fed during the middle of 
the day. If the cornstalks were cut or 
shredded that would give greater relish, 
make much better bedding, and would be 
more easily incorporated with the ma¬ 
nure. 
Comparative Values of Oats 
Will you inform me as to the relative 
feeding values of oats, fed in the follow’- 
ing conditions: 1. Dry in the hull, as 
sold at feed stores. 2. After a few hours’ 
soaking. 3. In very slightly sprouted con¬ 
dition, roots or sprouts about one-eighth 
inch in length. 4. When sprouts have 
reached height of 3 to 4 ins. I have read 
that oats just starting to sprout are in 
the most highly nutritious and easily di¬ 
gested condition, constituting the finest 
possible food for laying hens and growing 
fowls. Would oats fed in this slightly 
sprouted state through the Winter ans¬ 
wer the purpose of green food? c. E. c. 
Sprouted oats make excellent succu¬ 
lence for laying hens during the Winter, 
but it is not practicable to attempt to 
sprout oats for use in feeding other class¬ 
es of live stock, such as dairy cows or 
swine. Oats can be placed in flats and, 
after they have been properly sprinkled 
and saturated with water, if placed in 
the furnace room they will germinate. It 
is the practice of poultrymen to feed a 
mass of the sprouted oats twice daily to 
laying hens. Successive plantings can be 
made in the various flats, so that it will 
be possible to have available at all times 
sprouted oats with shoots on them several 
inches long. 
As to the value of whole oats fed dry 
compared with oats that have been soaked 
for a few hours, much would depend upon 
the particular kind of live stock to which 
they were fed. Soaking makes oats more 
palatable for dairy cows, pigs and poul¬ 
try ; but very little is gained by soaking 
oats intended for feeding horses. It is 
claimed that the soaking of oats increases 
their digestibility, possibly as much as 5 
or 8 per cent, since it makes them more 
palatable, and- that "certain animals are 
burgh, owner of the farm, is a good friend 
of The R. N.-Y., and says that he gets 
more out of it that is really worth while 
than all the publications he takes put 
together. 
more apt to chew them with greater rel¬ 
ish. Generally speaking, soaking whole 
grains is quite as advantageous as grind¬ 
ing them, when one considers the added 
cost of milling. 
I should say that there would be very 
little difference in the feeding value of 
oats sprouted as you have suggested, re¬ 
gardless of whether the sprouts are 1 in. 
long or 2 in. long. They serve the pur¬ 
pose of providing succulence and add pal¬ 
atability to the daily ration. At the 
Wisconsin Station experiments were con¬ 
ducted showing that when milk goats 
were provided with green feed of this 
character they were able to show a re¬ 
action evidencing the fact that calcium 
and other minerals were being stored in 
abundance. It is a well-known fact that 
dairy cows cannot assimilate certain min¬ 
eral constituents in the absence of some 
unknown product present in green grass; 
and it is believed that sprouted oats con¬ 
tribute these essential vitamines. 
October 29, 1921 
Feeding Young Pigs; Copperas for 
Horses 
1. Will you give a good grain ration 
for two eight-weeks-old pigs? They have 
skim-milk, and have been giving them 
middlings and cornmeal, not quite half 
and half. Is the following a good ration? 
Linseed oilmeal, whole wheat flour, oat¬ 
meal. barley meal, recleaned cottonseed 
meal, cocoa shell meal, bean meal, fenu¬ 
greek and salt. I wish to make them 
grow nicely through the Winter. 2. Is 
ground copperas good for horses with 
worms? How much is given, and when 
is the best time? a. a. s. 
New York. 
1. The ration that you have been feed¬ 
ing your growing pigs is faulty from two 
or three standpoints. In the first place, 
cottonseed meal should not be fed to pigs 
under any circumstances. In reality it is 
toxic or poisonous to swine and, if fed 
over any great length of time, is apt to 
check their growth, and it has been 
known to cause death. Cocoa shell meal 
likewise is not adapted for use in feed¬ 
ing swine. It is not easily digested, 
neither is it palatable nor nutritious for 
swine. If bean meal is used in rations 
for swine it should be cooked and salted, 
and should not constitute more than 15 
per cent of the mixture. I should not use 
fenugreek, for it is only incorporated in 
patent stock feeds and does not have any 
feeding value. Its function ordinarily is 
to make the mixture smell different from 
some other mixtures. Barley meal and 
oatmeal are two products well suited for 
swine feeding. Tankage is more popular 
than linseed meal as a source of protein 
for pigs. Linseed meal is apt to be too 
laxative. A mixture consisting of equal 
parts of ground oats and ground barley to 
which has been added 10 per cent of di¬ 
gester tankage, would be best suited for 
your conditions. I should not use any of 
the other materials unless I happened to 
have them on hand. Corn or hominy 
meal would be more economical than bar¬ 
ley meal unless by chance you produce 
the barley and would have to purchase 
corn or hominy. A mixture consisting of 
equal parts of salt, charcoal, bonemeal, 
sulphur and ground limestone has been 
known to give excellent results in swine 
growing. This mineral mixture is kept 
before the animals at all times, but is not 
mixed with the daily grain ration. 
2. Ferrous sulphate, ordinarily known 
as copperas, when finely ground and 
mixed with equal parts of powdered gen¬ 
tian. is a good vermifuge for horses. The 
dosage is a tablespoonful of the mixture 
fed in the grain twice daily for five days. 
Thinning a Cow Hide 
Could you advise me what to use for 
thinning or shaving cow hides, prepara¬ 
tory to making robes? It is a compara¬ 
tively simple job to tan a hide, yet the 
thinning process, which is the main 
requisite, seems to be a knack unknown to 
most of us. More home dressing of hides 
ought to be practiced, to eliminate their 
selling for almost nothing. J. M. 
In large establishments the hide is 
passed between rollers which keep it 
smooth, and pressed against an exceed¬ 
ingly sharp knife which is equal in length 
to the width of the hide, and which moves 
slowly back and forth, thus removing a 
large, thin sheet from the flesh side, 
which is used in bookbinding and for 
other purposes for which a very thin 
leather is required. The introduction and 
use of this machine was the chief factor 
in driving the small tanneries out of 
business. 
In the small establishments the hide is 
first tanned, by any of the various pro¬ 
cesses that I have described in previous 
issues. Then it is laid across a plank, 
one end of which rests upon the floor, 
while the other is raised breast high to 
the operator, who removes thin shavings 
from the flesh side until the hide is re¬ 
duced to the desired thinness. The im¬ 
plement used for this purpose is a sort of 
a draw-knife, or draw-shave, having a 
gauge somewhat similar to that upon a 
cobbler’s draw-knife, or a wagon-maker’s 
spoke-shave, or a safety razor, which pre¬ 
vents its cutting too deep. It is called a 
currying knife, and any hardware dealer 
can get one, though of late years they are 
not ordinarily carried in stock. The shav¬ 
ings are sometimes dried and ground and 
used in the manufacture of certain brands 
of leather-board, and sometimes reduced 
with acids and used as a fertilizer, but 
have very little commercial value ; scarce¬ 
ly enough to pay for removal. The hide 
may also be worked down with sandpaper, 
though this is a slow and somewhat tedi¬ 
ous job. But bear in mind that the chief 
factor in making a hide soft and flex¬ 
ible is the incorporation of heat’s-foot oil. 
All of this that the hide will contain 
should be worked into the flesh side, 
which is then rubbed well with wheat 
bran to remove any surplus. 
C. O. ORMSBEE. 
Dairy Ration 
I would like to have you send me a 
mixe'd ration to feed with silage and 
mixed Timothy and clover hay. s. n. 
Where silage is available and mixed 
Timothy and clover hay at hand, I should 
suggest the following shovel mixture for 
use in feeding dairy cows: Hominy, 300 
lbs.; bran, 200 lbs.; cottonseed, 150 lbs.; 
oilmeal. 150 lbs.; gluten, 100 lbs.; beet 
pulp, 100 lbs.; salt, 15 lbs. 
No Shoddy in These Overcoats 
A Roadside Patch of Buckwheat 
