Balanced Rations. I do not know just to what extent a cow requires a balanced ration. Since some feeds have values over others that the chemical analysis does not show, I think the balanced ration figures and tables have been overworked. They are not entirely valueless, however. Some will be placed in this book. Everyone knows that a cow should not be fed one kind of feed only. We should give as great a variety of feeds as possible and the cow’s likes and dislikes, together with the results in the milk pail, give about all the information concerning a balanced feed that the writer has ever used. We do not need to worry about the supply of protein here because we use so much alfalfa, or about the carbohydrates when we are feeding the product of the corn plant.
A variation from a balanced ration does not immediately affect the cow and usually one change offsets another. Experienced feeders of record-making cattle make use of the chemical analysis of feeds in their intense effort to have the cow digest a very large amount of food, yield a large amount of milk, and still keep her bodily weight about normal. But for farm conditions we should know that too great an amount of alfalfa, bran, and like feeds usually results in sleek, fat cattle and that cows fed principally corn and carbohydrates, if they are milking well, will look rather rough and get too thin. The writer at one time had alfalfa in such abundance that he let the milk herd run out in the field and eat all they wanted from the stack. They had silage and other feeds about as usual, but they did not eat as much silage as they should have. The result was that the herd looked fine and thrifty but produced less milk.
Many people think that a cow is either lean or fat and if she fills out in her body she is always taking on fat, but the amount of lean meat on the body also varies. Protein feeds are muscle builders. They make animals grow. Carbohydrates supply fat and energy which is a separate thing from muscle. Many times if cows become overweight we reduce the total amount of feed consumed and get a large yield in the milk pail. “The eye of the feeder fattens his cattle.” It also fills the milk pail. Scientific knowledge can help a good feeder but I doubt very much if it alone can make one. Rules and system can not be made to take the place of interest and attention.
For those who care to go thoroughly into the subject of feeding I recommend “How to Feed the Dairy Cow,” by Hugh Van Pelt, Editor of Kimball’s Dairy Farmer, Waterloo, Iowa.
I have referred those who wish to go deeply into the subject of feeds to more eminent authorities because I have never raced cows in a record contest and am not an authority on the subject. The reason I have for writing is that I have viewed the subject from the standpoint of profit making rather than that of high production. Feeding for profit has been too little considered.
Pastures. The way that pastures are generally used is, in my opinion, the greatest mistake in the milk business. Certainly we can make two blades of grass grow where one blade of grass and one weed grew before. Most of the pastures that we see are either bare like a desert or weedy enough to hide a calf three months old. A cow can not get enough feed in the average pasture, no matter how many acres she mows over. There is no need to estimate how many acres of poor pasture a cow requires, but one acre of well-cared for pasture per cow is all the writer has ever had to use. While I have fed a small amount of alfalfa in the summer, I think it is safe to say that our cows had more grass per head than almost any cows in the county. Next year I expect to pasture fifty cows on thirty acres, feeding what is necessary in addition. I expect to get nearly enough grass in a reasonably good year for that number of cows.
The secret of the system lies in the fact that I have the pasture divided into four parts and pasture one part at a time, then use a mowing machine to clip off all weeds or remaining grass close to the ground. Before turning the cattle into one of these pastures, I wait until the grass has had about four weeks to grow. If the grass gives out, the cow is given enough feed to make up the difference. I do not let the grass stay short, for if it stays short, the roots will also be short and in that condition it can not withstand drought. Any kind of grass will yield two or three times as much feed per acre, if allowed to grow a month at a time as it will if pastured off short all of the time. I let the cattle eat the grass off the pasture about as often as alfalfa is cut. Everyone knows that if they would cut their alfalfa every three days they would have hardly a hat full of hay at the end of the season. I aim to mow the pasture about the time that the cattle are taken out, for I do not want any old, tough grass for the next time that the cattle are turned into it.
Much of our pasture is a mixture of blue grass, timothy and sweet clover with the sweet clover predominating. I do not want to place too much reliance on shallow rooting grasses, such as white clover and blue grass, although I have some pasture of that kind. I like to have about five acres of sorghum or Sudan grass to pasture once about the first of August and then again about the second week in September.
Sweet clover will root about four feet deep. Alfalfa will root much deeper but is not practical as a pasture. Blue grass and white clover, especially where cropped off short, root very shallow. Sudan grass will draw moisture three or four feet deep. Sudan grass is like sorghum and may at some time turn poison late in the fall, as far as I know, but I know people who use it regularly for pasture and have never had any such trouble. I have never pastured Sudan grass but have used sorghum, and have had no bad results. To get the most out of pasture we must have all the surface available for use and we must give the plant an opportunity to breathe in order that it may root as deep as possible, and then we should use deep rooting grasses such as sweet clover and Sudan grass or sorghum.
In getting at the value of pastures be sure to remember that the cow goes out to harvest the crop. I do not think that pasture is an expensive feed. It is probably the cheapest feed we can get all things considered, when properly managed.