T22 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
Asa general rule, the greater the amount of food eaten the 
greater will be the proportion available for the formation of 
marketable products. Profitable feeding requires that the feed 
be regulated by the quantity and quality of these products. 
The uses of the food are to repair the worn out tissues of the 
animal machine, to supply heat and energy, and to build up 
new products. The wastes of the animal machine and the 
fuel required for heat and for muscular work—in other words, 
the demand for maintenance, do not seem to vary much for 
differences of one to two hundred pounds in live weight, but 
differences of five to ten quarts per day in the milk product 
will involve very different demands for food. 
The following rations for milch cows have been formulated 
with the plan in view of utilizing home grown nitrogenous 
feeding stuffs, and of supplementing these mainly by the addi- 
tion of concentrated nitrogenous feeds, the latter to be increased 
in accordance with the milk production. A “basal ration’’ is 
recommended for cows giving from ten to twenty pounds of 
milk per day. This is to be fed to all animals of the herd with 
the exception of those which are well advanced in the period 
of lactation, and which are naturally shrinking rapidly in milk 
flow. ‘The basal ration is essentially the same as the tentative 
standard heretofore recommended by this Station for cows of 
about 800 pounds live weight. ‘To this basal ration is added, 
for all cows giving over twenty pounds of milk per day, a 
‘“protein mixture’’ made up of highly nitrogenous grain 
feeds. The proportions of the materials are such that one 
pound of this mixture furnishes about three-tenths of a pound 
of digestible protein. One pound of the mixture is to be added 
for each five pounds increase in the milk flow above twenty 
pounds per day. ‘These rations are based on the formulas 
given on page 121, for cows weighing from 750 to 950 pounds 
live weight. Rations for heavier cows can be calculated in the 
same way by using as a basis the formulas found in the lower 
part of the table. These formulas call for larger rations than 
those for lighter cows, but the nutritive ratio is practically the 
same. Cows weighing 1000 pounds or more would probably 
require an increase in all of the nutrients. These rations have 
been calculated from table 11, pages 80, 81, giving the propor- 
tion of digestible nutrients in the different feeding stuffs. 


