ANIMAL NUTRITION

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 29

ANIMAL NUTRITION

SIGH OF GOOD PASTURE An export on animal nutrition, writing in he Welsh Journal, says:—Tho time spent by an animal in chewing the cud and resting on any particular pastures would seem to give a useful indication of the nutritive value of the pasture, the more time speut in resting and the less time in grazing, and particularly in chewing the cud, indicating a good pasture. The time of the year and the intensity of grazing largely govern the composition of the sward, while the effect of the management of one year on the composition of the sward th'e next year is a function of intensity of grazing in relation to the various seasons of the year. In a sward the plants in it stage of active growth at any particular time are greatly weakened by excessive grazing at that time. In order, therefore, to keep a certain sward productive at any period of the year an attempt should be made t<# favour those plants in their competition with other species by taking care that the pasture is not over-stocked at that particular period in the preceding years. The deterioration in the value of meadow hay bv undue delay iu t utting has been frequently demonstrated in the past by chemical analyses of the produce obtained by cutting at different stages of ripeness and it has been shown that the time of cutting which gives the biggest ha> stack rarely gives the highest yield of digestible nutritive matter, owing to the steady fall of digestibility of the plant substance which sets in before maximum growth is attained.