BINDING WIRE IN STRAW FODDER.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 114, 18 January 1879, Page 3

BINDING WIRE IN STRAW FODDER.

(From Sydney ‘Town and Country.’) _ The question of wire in the straw is still an objection in' snme minds, but is of far less importance than it is in England, because at present very little’of our straw is used for fodder. Yet as it is to be hoped that straw ‘will ere long be so employed, and in some districts is so, it may be as well to understand the effects of the wire- if taken into the stomach of cattle, or how it may be avoided if injurious. The wire bands must, of course be cut to prepare the sheaves for the threshing machine. If ? the wire bands be, injurious they could be removed, and cutters which while cutting the bands, will retaiu the wire have been provided. Carelessness alone would permit the wire to pass with the sheaves into the thresher. But it does not seem that any great injury will happen if the wire is eaten with the straw. Information on the point published b\ T the lowa ‘ State Hegister’ lias been copied by all the English jo rods. It is is follows : Self-binders using wire are coming into general use, and stock raising is of too much consequence to be jeopavdised by any injurious element. In 1863 and 1864 the grain on Meibonru ♦ farm ■ was bound with wire, using the Bin-son binder. There was no effort made to save the wir-= from the straw when threshing. The cattle on the farm were wintered at the straw stacks. At the time there was considerable talk on this subject, and consequently the result of such feeding was watched with interest. “ There could not be discovered outwardly any deleterious effects of the wire on grown cattle, cows, or younger stock. AH appeared to prosper and were health}-. This would appear to be nearly conclusive evidence that there was no danger from such wire. “ But in the fall of 1864 we slaughtered a steer for beef, and made close observations as to the effect of the wire. The steer had not eaten any of the straw in which there was wire for seven months. There was in the first stomach {sometimes called manifold) at least one hundred pieces of the wires, of from half an inch to an inch long.,sticking in the honeycomb lining of the first stomach. They were fast, and immovable by any operation of nature, and would evidently have remained there as long as the animal lived. There were few in the second and less in the third .stomachs,, but none . could be found in the smaller intestines. And while the presence of these wires threatened serious difficulty, yet there was not the least inflammation, mattering, or ossification around-the wires. The next year .(after they had been feeding two winters ■on the same) we slaughtered again, and, found the wires in the manifold. Again, in the fall of 1866. we killed a dry cow, which had no chance of eating wire for twenty months, but the pieces were found plentifully. And - yet during all this time, and even since, our stock has been healthy, and grew finely under the care administered at Melrose-, farm ; and there are two .old cows at least, now on the farm, doing their duty, who fed on straw and wire twelve yeai-s ago.” This is all very 1 well so far as it goes. It px-oves that a certain amount of wire maybe present in the stomachs of cattle without injury, but not that there would be no injury to stock if larger quantities were present. It is, hovyeyer, satisfoctory, in so far,as., it shows: that;-wire left accidentally amongst the straw would entail no great risk, and this. is of grcat importance, because if it were not so the use of wire must have been condemned altogether. As it is we would advise that the bands be removed, but not with that anxious care which some have thought would be necessasy. A lad can be trusted with the duty, whereas in the other case the most careful and trustworthy, and therefore valuable, hand would have to be told off for it. The value of the saved bands, it has been said, will repay the cost. .