FEEDING FOR MILK.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 419, 2 December 1911, Page 7

FEEDING FOR MILK.

All nursing aniamls are chronically hungry (says Professor Wrightson; and a cow is more than a nurse. She is a cultivated, artic'fially - trained nurse. Just as well-bred hens are induced to lay an egg every day, so a good cow will yield enough rnilk for three calves. That such anima's should be voracious need not be a matter of surprise. A cow, yielding three, four, or five gallons of rnilk every day does a great deal more with her food than a fattening builock laying on 141b of beef a week. Now, who would expect a bullock to do this on less than 41b of cuke and 4lb of meal per day? How then can a cow be expected to keep up three gallons of milk daily unless she is fed fully as well as a bullock? The question might be worked out by looking up the amount of solids in 141b of beef and in 21 gallons of milk. It might betaken out in terms of nitrogen; but the 21 gallons of milk would contain more than 141b of beef. Milk is all taken straight'out of the blood of the cow, and unless it is replaced with allowances for waste in digestion, it must be taken from her on flesh. This is the view which should be taken of cow-feeding, with all its contingencies of gaining and losing flesh, and increasing or decreasing in value.