THE VALUE OF PROTEIN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 428, 6 January 1912, Page 6

THE VALUE OF PROTEIN.

Protein is first of all required for repair purposes fo*' making good the wear of the bodily machinery. The amount required for this purpose is comparatively small and is no greater under normal conditions when the animal ia working than when it is not. Like a good engine the body makes relatively small demands for repair material and chiefly requires fuel. Protein and ash are required by the growing pregnant or milking animal, to furnish the material for enlarging the working machinery of the body of the animal itself of its young. The amount required for this purpose is just as much as i 3 necessary in addition to thai needed for repair purposes simply. Hence the food of these animals must contain a more liberal supply of this ingredient. This ia important, physiologically, to secure proper nutrition of the young, and economically because the growth or milk produced is the principal object of the feeder. For the reason Stated the ash has generally been omitted from consideration in discussing the feed as a source of repair material. The value of a feeding stuff as a source of protein to the animal evidently depends in the first place on the amount of protein which it contains. In America cotton seed meal carrying some 43 per cent, of protein ia evidently, other things being equal, a better source of protein than Indian corn, carrying 10 per cent. In the second place, however, the protein of the feeding stuff mut be capable of being digested by the animal. It ia therefore evident that of two feeding stuffs containing equal amounts to protein, that one is more valuable as a source of supply in which the larger proportion of the protein is digestible. Those are points which cattlemen should study carefully, because the quality of food consumed plays an important part in returns, that are low. Thia accounts for the fact that stock sometimes do better on what are apparently rather bare'pastures in one district than on luxuriant ones in another, |