FEED FLAVOURS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 88, 19 June 1946, Page 2

FEED FLAVOURS

MILK, CREAM AND BUTTER (By E. R. Marryatt) 111 Controlled grazing will greatly re-, duce the incidence and intensity of ordinary clovery feed flavour. It is usually necessary to adopt it only in the daytime for the cows do not as a rule graze during the four hours prior to the morning milking. Feeding only mature pasturage to the cows is very important in the spring and in the autumn not only to avoid “feedy” cream but also to avoid bloat. Rationed winter-saved grass fed with some lucerne hay or good clover hay is as safe as any ration in the spring. ' Transference Growth

Pasturage which has been closed to stock for some considerable time is mature only until its first few hours of grazing even if there is •still six inches of herbage to be grazed. Immediately some defoliation of a pasture plant takes place during periods of rapid growth, “transference growth” begins, and this is immature growth which is thought to cause both feedy cream and bloat in stock if grazed before it has had time to mature.

“Transference growth” is growth by a short cut, and as opposed to normal “active growth” it is the partial and almost immediate substitution of some of the leafage removed from a plant, by transference te the damaged leaves of some of the stored nutrients in its roots and crown and not by the normal process of leaf growth. If has that pale yelowish appearance of the first - quick growth on the stubble of mown green cereals or grass well known to men of the field. It appears within a few hours of defoliation but does not mature for several days. Subdivisioning Pastures

The time will vary with the local conditions but to be on the safe side, the second grazing should be delayed for as near to a week as possible. This means never putting the herd into the same field at these dangerous times of the year after two successive milkings but waiting as long as possible before grazing a field for the second time. This necessitates many small fields and for this purpose temporary subdivision may be conveniently arranged by using a single wire electric fence.

Where feed flavour and bloat are troublesome this method should be given a fair trial.