Basic HTML Version
30
The
PLAIN TRUTH
CTK Agorpres Photo
A "Metal Mother" feeds more thon o dozen young calves so thot their real
mothers con be put bock to work producing milk, on o form neor Buchorest,
Romonio.
( first stomach), most of this material
remains through tbe entire finishing,
thus doing away with the need for
ordinary roughage or more plastic pel–
lets. lt keeps the cow's stomach suf–
fi.ciently full and provides the "scratch
effect" ruminants need (
Drover's
J
Otlr-
1/al,
May
22, 1969)!
The Search for Protein
Because of depleted soil, much feed
and forage for animals does not contain
all the nutrients it ought to have. Th1s
fact, coupled with the goal of intensi–
fi.ed, speeded-up, high-gain production,
makes feed supplements a major con–
cero of the modero producer. He is
especially concerned about protein sup–
plemeots - and getting tbem cheap.
To this end sorne farmers are experi–
menting with cutting feed costs
50
per–
cent by feeding cows grain mixed with
chickeo litter. Ninety percent of our
chickens are raised on arseoic-treated
feeds, aod it remains to be seeo whcther
this arsenic residue in the littcr - as
well as poultry disease micro-organisms
- wil! transmít to cattle.
Other producers are feeding tbeir
cattle "wastelage" - cattle excrement
mixed with hay
!
And believe it or not,
stored fresh manure and ground hay
produced
26
percent cheaper gains in a
recent Auburn University test. All car–
casses were graded "choice," but steers
on ordinary standard ration suffered
rumen parakeratosis and all tripe was
condemned. None of the wastelage-fed
cattle had this problem
(Farm Joumal,
Aug.
1969).
But does this mean that raw manure
is good food? Or does it indeed show
the miserable failure of the standard
ration?
A source of protein that is sky–
rocketing in popularity is
m·ea.
Last year
U.
S.
farmers used sorne
500,000
tons
oi
urea to replace over
2
million tons of
oi lseed meal or other protein supple–
ments.
Urea is a synthetic nitrogen com–
pound chemically derived from gasses.
In the past it has been used as fertilizer
and in plastics manufacture.
It is not a feed and animals can't nat–
urally digest it. But bacteria in a rumi–
nal stomach, with the help of plenty of
carbohydrates (such as corn), can con-
October-November 1970
vert urea into digestible protein at a
considerable savings over oilseed meal.
When "properly" used, urea can con–
stitute up to one third of the total
proteio ration. Without fermentable
carbohydrates to use the urea, however,
a cow will quickly die.
In the poultry business there is a sim–
ilar quest for cheap protein. As with
cattle, rations using the birds' own litter
is one source being tried. The waste
products of poultry processing -
heads, feet and interna! organs - have
also been turned into a supplement that
is mixed with other feed.
We could go on and on with a seem–
ingly endless list of other feed mixtures
and additives that are either widely
in use or being experimented with.
Insecticides in feed to kill lice on the
cows' backs, tranquilizers to keep move–
ment and energy loss at a mínimum,
charcoal in feeds to filter out pesticides,
etc., etc., etc. But you ought to be get–
ting the picture. One other widespread
pract ice, however, must be mentioned.
Artificial Insemination
Artificial insemination is becoming
ever more popular. But now the penal–
ties for this unnatural practice of arti–
ficially impregnating the female animal
with the male sperm are beginning to
come to light. For a generation or two
there may seem to be no ill effects. But
over a period of time this unnatural
tampering with the sexual patterns of
animals is at least partially responsible
for extremely hwnan-sounding problems
like homosexuality and nymphomania.
Animals need contact with each
other. In the continued absence of a
male, the female reproductive cycle
becomes upset, estrus ( the mating
phase) is likely to be delayed, and
the likelihood of conception may be
reduced. Also it can lead to a kind of
manía in which cows remain constantly
"in heat." In an affected herd, severa!
cows are likely to run amok and try, on
occasion, to act like males. The result is
a dramatic drop in milk production
among dafry cows, and sometimes
appalling accidents occur in which
limbs are broken
(London Sunday
Times,
Sept.
8, 1968).
Yet scientists are now trying to pro–
duce "litters" of calves in order to get