Show KUSSIAN THISTLE MAKES POOR RAY HAY SAYS EXPERT j grave danger lies ahead for the stockman who feeds his animals Russian thistle in fit large 5 arn amounts according accor diug to dr george stewart senior ecologist or oc the tain forest and range experiment station ogden the chief trouble will come with nutritional disturbances dr stewart explained while dr stewart was recently visiting the branch experiment station at havre montana al M A bell superintendent of 0 the station explained the results ot of an experiment which had bad been conducted with aith cattle to determine the winter teed feed value ot of russian thistle in a feeding 90 day tests including alfalfa wild hay bay and grain one lot of 0 cattle was ted fed on nothing but russian thistle hay these animals soon lost their luster lost weight and appeared unthrifty several weeks before the end ot of the test they would lie on the ground tor for hours at a time and those in the I 1 worst condition were unable to stand when raised to their feet it was observed that after a time the hair on these animals pointed toward their heads and became shaggy they showed all indications ot of being malnourished mal nourished when it was demonstrated beyond a doubt that the thistle was ree for their condi condition tio n the cattle were fed alfalfa hay within two weeks they were up on their teet feet were gaining rapidly rabidly and were on the way back to sound cond condition another lot in the experimental pens was fed only a small amount of thistle this group continued to thrive up to a point where the w weed eed constituted about 25 percent of the amolato of teed feed this shows that in mixed rations russian thistle can be used to replace only about one fourth ot of other feeds in the ration dr stewart pointed out |