Thus it is very plainly to be seen that whey is poor stuff to feed, even in its best estate. It has some value to mix with other foods, if used sweet; but when the sugar has all turned to acid, and the phosphates have become lactates, leaving the phosphoric acid free, the whey is abominable, and can be used only in small quantities and with great care. It ought not to be fed to young animals with tender stomachs, and does older animals no good.
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
All this corresponds with general observation and experience. The most intelligent dairymen with whom we are acquainted do not consider sour whey worth drawing home. It is cruel to feed sweet whey to any animal exclusively. Even a hog, which has made its growth—and no animal can more fully extract the nutrihealth while actually growing fat on sweet whey. The portion of less than one per cent. of albuminous matter prolongs, rather than sustains life. That is to say, the hog will not starve to death quite so quick if fed whey as it will without it. The sugar accumulates in the system as fat, while the hog is slowly perishing of inanition. But if it is thus cruel to feed it alone to full grown animals, it is doubly so to feed it to young and growing animals—as pigs and calves—the necessities of the lives of which demand tissue-making material as well as life-sustaining. If whey is used, let it be fed sweet, and always with some kind of dry nitrogenous food, as bean meal, oil meal, pea meal, clover, etc. But, with the acid system of cheese-making, it is impossible to do this. The whey is decomposed before run into the whey-vat.
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[TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS.]
Apparatus & Supplies