EXPERIMENTS IN STOCK FEEDING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1527, 7 April 1887, Page 3

EXPERIMENTS IN STOCK FEEDING

The experiments condncted by Mr J. I W. Sanborn, of the College Farm at Hanover, N.H , m feeding calves presented s me facts which will be found valuable to meat raisers. According to '• "grieulture," two calves, four and a half weeks old, weighing together 2831 b, were taken and fed upon 20 quarts of skim milk daily late m November. They gained mlB days 39Ibs Over eight quarts of milk were required for a pound m growth For the next fourteen days lib of mixed meals was added to the milk, and they gained 631bs For the next fourteen days they had 2lbs of meal and 41bs of bay added to the milk of each day, and then they added 531bs to their weight at a cost of l£d per lb. For the next fourteen days they had nearly the same; feed, and gained 611bs During the next fourteen days they put on 601db on the same food with some addition of hay. Fourteen days later they had made another 631bs, with added meul and hay, ;at a cost of nearly 2d. The lesson taught by these results was that the older the meat, the more costly ; but through the whole, though m winter, there was an actual profit, rating the meal and milk at ordinary prices, and the hay at £2 per ton. 'Ibis was a single limited experiment, but it shows the importance, to farmers of knowing at what ago it is most profitable to feed or dispose of animals, We observe m the details of the above experiment that there was but a slight increase m the amount of food when the weight of the animals had largely increased .

Other experiments were oasde, with young oattle averaging 4351bs each, to determine the probable amount of food animals would consume. They were found to require 3£ per cent, of their live weight daily m hay, the small amount of grain estimated m hay. Ten pounds of hay were required for lib of growth Additional trials were made with two-year-old Bteers, weighing from lOOOlbs to llOOlbs. An average of eight experiments, extending from twenty-eight to ninety daj s, gave a consumption of 2. 16 per cent, of tli3ir live weight daily, with an average gain of 0.85 of a pound. The Important fact waß determined that the older and larger the aDimal grows, the more food it requires to make a pound of growth. Some valuable experiments wero made with roots as fo d. For growing cattle, carrots brought nothing, but they proved very much better for miik and butter then | swedes or mangels. The latter were found wcrae than useloss to milch cows, as compared with other food, while for growing anim&ls thuy brought 7s a ton, rating hay at £2 per ton. Professor Sanborn alludes to the old analytic methods of determining the value of food?, and those applied to oarrotß show 135 of albuminoids. By the pnsent plan it is out down to only 0*26 This faot bears rather bard on the infallibility of abstract scientific teaohing.