| Show FARM TOPICS lipics DAIRY CATTLE NEED ROUGHAGE constitute important part in i balanced ration by DR W B NEVENS chief in dairy cattle faedi feeding university of fl illinois college of af agriculture Agni agriculture culture one of the new developments in dairy cattle feeding is the discovery made in recent investigational work that the roughage portion of the ration is by far the most important part if dairy cows are supplied with liberal amounts of well pre served high quality legume rough ages the balance of the ration is of little importance from the standpoint of the character of the nutrients one of the facts which has led to I 1 this conclusion is the finding that dairy cattle require vitamins A and D in large amounts and that these are supplied by the roughage or sunlight the concentrated portion of the ration supplying little or none of either vitamin As a rule either the other vitamins are supplied in adequate amounts in the ration or dairy cattle have means of sufficient amounts not only has vitamin A been found to be of tremendous importance in the health of dairy cattle but dairy cows have the ability to convert a considerable portion of the carotene of the ration into vitamin A and to secrete this vitamin in the milk in view of these facts it has become increasingly important to make sure that hages fed to dairy cattle contain large amounts of green color and that they are in excellent condition that is not moldy or musty so that they can be completely consumed sunlight obtained by dairy daily cows while at pasture or in their exercising yards or sun cured hay are ordinarily the sources from which vitamin D is supplied however even during early spring sunlight is is very low in its power to impart va vitamin tamin D sun cured hay is probably the best source of vitamin D for dairy cattle large enough to consume at least 2 pounds of hay daily small calves as a rule do not consume this amount of hay and it has been found advantageous to supply them with one teaspoonful of feeding grade of cod liver oil iri in the milk each day |
