55 
American Agriculturist, January 19, 1924 
Cow Stable Experiences 
Getting the Most Milk for the Least Feed Cost 
E DITOR EASTMAN has By E. E. ROE if a fellow can get along 
asked me to tell you in until he can begin to 
an occasional article some of the differ¬ 
ent things I do to get results from 
my cows. I think the chief reason that 
he has picked on me is that I have 
been able to get fair returns from grade 
cows under the average conditions under 
which the great majority of farmers have 
to produce milk. I have done nothing 
remarkable, have had no particular ad¬ 
vantages over the average farmer, and 
have done nothing that any farmer can¬ 
not do, yet I do manage even in hard 
times to make a little profit. I have no 
doubt that thousands of men do things 
differently, with better results; if so, I 
hope a lot of them will write me, care of 
the editor, who will forward the letters, 
and we should be able to get up a whale 
of a discussion that will make interesting 
and worth-while reading for all of us. 
After all, you know, it is we fellows right 
on the job who ought to know best what 
pays and what does not. Just to start 
the ball a-rolling, in this first little dis¬ 
cussion, I am going to try tc give you some 
of my ways of feeding to get the most 
milk at the least cost. 
Always Looking for Information 
Let me say first that I spend a good 
deal of time reading everything I can 
that is written by the feed experts in 
the colleges and experiment stations, and 
I also read the advertisements of and 
listen carefully to the feed manufacturers 
themselves, for, it seems to me that, 
whatever we may think of some of the 
feed men, the most of them know that 
their best interests lie in rendering good 
service to farmers. Furthermore, I sus¬ 
pect that when it comes to a real knowl¬ 
edge of feeding, the feed men themselves 
know quite considerable about it. Mostly, 
though, I depend upon my own expe¬ 
rience. Theory is all right, and I get all 
I can of it, but when it comes to applying 
it, every man’s own conditions make a 
different proposition. 
Do Silos Pay? 
Now here are some of my feeding 
practices. In the first place, we all know 
that good roughage is fundamental. 
Getting good roughage is easier said 
than done. I have a silo. Sometimes I 
wish the darn thing were in Halifax; it 
costs a lot to fill it, and it takes the stuff¬ 
ing out of me physically every fall before 
it is filled and the neighbors’ help is all 
paid back by changing work. But cows 
have got to have succulent feed some way, 
and I don’t know any cheaper way to get 
it than through the silo. One thing 
though about silage, I have concluded 
that most of us feed too much. Dad 
used to give every cow a heaping bushel 
twice a day, and sometimes sneaked in a 
little at noontime. How I used to dread 
taking those heaping bushels down the 
long line of expectant-looking cows every 
night and morning! I feed less than half 
a bushel of silage twice a day and I vary 
the amount according to the cow’s mess. 
I have experimented with this a lot and 
I think I get just as much milk as I would 
if I soaked twice the amount to them all 
of the time. 
Now I believe this is an important 
point. If we can feed less silage with just 
as good results, we need not plow so 
much or if we do plow, we could put in 
some cash crop that will supplement the 
milk checks. How much silage do you 
feed? How do you know that less or 
more would not pay you better? Some 
years I have run out of silage and 
have tried out other forms of succulent 
feed. It’s been my experience that beet 
pulp is the next best. 
Another interesting subject in silage 
feeding is whether it pays to put in 
enough to feed the cows in late summer 
when the pastures are drying up. I have 
had a little experience, but not enough, 
to say positively. I think, though, that 
feed green corn that this green fodder 
is better. 
Theory and Practice with Clover 
Now a few words on my hay question, 
which is the other part of the roughage 
problem. We are told, of course, to feed 
nothing but legume hay; I have fed a 
little alfalfa and a lot of clover, so I know 
that this advice is good if—but this is a 
dickens of a big “if”—you have the 
alfalfa and clover. I think alfalfa is going 
to be grown more and more in the eastern 
dairy states, but most of us have not 
much alfalfa now, neither are we sure of 
having nothing but clover. For years I 
have been working toward clover and 
some alfalfa, but I am still a long ways 
from this ideal. Every time I seed down 
a piece, I mix in a little alfalfa seed. In 
this way I have inoculated my whole 
farm and there is a little more alfalfa in 
my hay. Every year, too, I seed down a 
small piece of alfalfa, so that now I have 
altogether quite a sizable patch. Similar¬ 
ly, I sow a lot of clover and buy all the 
lime I can afford, so that while I do not 
think that my farm is naturally adapted 
to legumes, I have kept at it until my 
hay is now composed of about 50% 
legumes. It is getting a little better each 
year. 
Problem Most Protein for Least Money 
I agree with the experts that the big 
problem of feeding is to get the most 
protein for the least money. If one can 
grow' this protein in his hay, he can cut 
his grain bill. I have succeeded in grow¬ 
ing part of it. If I had enough alfalfa 
and clover, I could pretty nearly cut out 
my purchased feed. If, on the other hand, 
I had only timothy or timothy mixed 
with weeds, I would have to buy a 
tremendous amount of feed high in 
protein, which is the most costly feed on 
the market. 
h I was interested in reading the other 
day about an experiment conducted by 
W. J. Fraser of the University of Illinois. 
He fed a herd of dairy cows for six years 
almost entirely on alfalfa hay and corn 
silage, with no purchased feed whatever. 
The cows received on an average of 14.5 
pounds of alfalfa and 37 pounds of silage. 
When the cow gave over 20 pounds of 
milk daily, she received a little corn 
meal, the corn being grown on the farm. 
The herd was on pasture in season. On 
this feed, the average yearly production 
per cow of the entire six years was 7,470 
pounds of milk, and 262 pounds of fat. 
How I Buy Feed 
As I have stated, I have not reached 
that ideal situation of having enough 
alfalfa, so I have to buy feed to go with 
my silage and with mixed clover hay. 
How will I make my money go the far¬ 
thest? 
I know that the high protein feeds 
containing 23% or more are: 
Linseed oil meal, cottonseed meal, 
distillers’ dried grains, gluten meal, 
gluten feed and buckwheat middlings. 
The medium protein feeds containing 
between 12 to 23% are: 
Wheat bran, cocoanut oil meal, stand¬ 
ard wheat middlings, wheat mixed feed, 
germ oil meal and barley feed. The low 
protein feeds containing less than 12% 
are: 
Corn meal, hominy feed, ground oats, 
ground barley, corn feed meal, ground 
buckwheat and ground rye. 
What About Home Mixing? 
I have proven to my own satisfaction 
that I cannot get milk with mixed clover 
hay on a ration that contains much less 
than 18 to 20% protein. Contrariwise, 
I think when I buy a ration with much 
more than this protein, I am paying more 
than I get out of it. So when it comes to 
actually making my feed purchases, I buy 
(Continued on page 59) 
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