Concentrates And Corn Stalks
Categories:
Feeding Farm Animals
Is it necessary to feed mulch cows any hay or concentrated feed in
addition to green corn stalks?
It is necessary. Green corn is an excellent thing for milch cows, but it
is a very unbalanced ration and needs alfalfa or something else to
balance it up. Green corn, for example, contains only about one per cent
of digestible protein and 11.5 per cent of digestible carbohydrates and
0.4 per cent fat, or a nutritive ratio of about 1 to 12 1/2. A proper
ration would be about 1 to 6 or 7, or less. To balance this up alfalfa
can be fed better than anything else in California, for that is very
rich in protein and the cheapest supply of protein that there is. If you
give the cows a good supply of alfalfa hay with the green corn, you will
have an ideal combination.