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Show THE USE OF GROUND ALFALFA We are having a good deal of inquiry in-quiry from the people in the central states about the practicability of ground alfalfa as a stock food and we will try to tell what little we know about it. We have in Colorado a dozen doz-en or more mills grinding and sacking sack-ing alfalfa) for the eastern trade and the business is growing year by year so that we can icxpect to see a hundred hun-dred such mills within the next decade. de-cade. The alfalfa meal can be mixed with more concentrated feeds to form ; a balanced ration and moreover can 1 be conveniently handled and stored. J The average percentage composition I of alfalfa meal is water 10.8, protein 17.2, fat 1.6; nttrogen free extract 36.4; crude fiber 26.3 and ash 7.6 percent. IHLHLffHs ! II HI II ' I , The composition of alfalfa hay is j water 84; protein 14.3; fat, 2.2; nitro- I gen-frec extract, 42.7; crude fiber, 25.0. and ash 74 percent. It will be seen that the meal and hay have practically the same composition, com-position, the difference in the average values being no greater than might be expected! in different samples of cither material. This uniformity in composition is to be expected because the grinding process alone neither adds nor takes away from the amount or proportion of nutrients present although it increases the digestibility of the material somicwhat. The feeding feed-ing value of alfalfa meal and cut or chopped alfalfa hay was once tested with eight lots of seven pigs, averaging averag-ing not far from eighty-five pounds each. The meal was prepared by running run-ning the hay through a grinder and the chopped material by cutting the I hay into one-half inch lengths with a silage cutter. The test was planned so that corn meal with chopped alfalfa hay were compared with mixtures of corn and bran and corn and shorts and with corn meal alone. Some of the mixed rations were nvadc up of three parts of corn to one part of the other products pro-ducts and others half and half. For convenience ground corn was used with the cut ground alfalfa hay and the ration was moistened with water before feeding. This prevented the feed from being blown by the wind and induced the pigs to cat up the alfalfa) al-falfa) better than they would have otherwise oth-erwise done. In the twelve weeks covered by the test the average daily gain for each pig ranged from 0.8 pound with the lot fed corn and bran three to one to --m7s96 pounds with the lot fed corn and shorts three to one. Almost as large gains 1.071 and 1.062 pounls were made respectively by the lots fed corn and cut alfalfa hay three to one and corn and ground alfalfa hay three to one. The gains made on corn and cut alfalfa hay and corn and ground "alfSil- fa hay half and half were respectively ! 0.922 and 0.888 pound for each head j daily. The smallest amount of feed jj for each pound of gain 4.66 pounds-was pounds-was noted with the lot fed? corn and shorts three to one and the largest amount 5.89 pounds came with the lot fed corn and bran three to one. With the corn -and alfalfa rations three to one the average amount was 4.8 pounds and with the corn and alfalfa al-falfa rations half and half 5-5 pounds. The cost of a pound of gain ranged from 2.62 cents with the lot fed corn and cut alfalfa hay to 3.96 -cents with the lot fed corn and ground alfalfa hay half and half. The cut alfalfa hay was rated at $8 a ton and the gro nd alfalfa at $16 a ton. |
