RestrictionsAll controls of animal feeding-stuffs have now been revoked. Future supplies will depend upon the activities of private traders. No restriction has so far been placed upon their spending of any currency, including dollars, and if this continues there should be a greater supply than during the past few years. In addition the restriction upon the use of home-grown wheat has been withdrawn, and this should give poultry keepers access to supplies previously denied to them.
The Contribution of Grazing to the Nutrition of Farm AnimalsBy A. S. BARKER and W. S. FERGUSON, Jealott's Hill Research Station, Bmcknell, Berks.British farming is mainly devoted to livestock production, since 70-75y0 of the total value of all products sold off our farms is attributable to livestock, and nearly 50% to cattle and sheep. Approximately four-fifths of our total crop production, including grass, is used for animal feeding, supplemented by an annual importation of some 3-4 million tons of animal feeding-stuffs. Grass production is much the most extensive way of using agricultural land in the U.K. and of some 48 million acres, excluding 17 million acres of uncultivated rough grazings, threefifths of the cultivated land is in grass. Grass, therefore, is much the most important single crop in British farming and the main source of livestock food; in fact, it provides about twice the amount of nutrients obtained from all other sources combined. If annual food consumption of livestock is measured in terms of starch equivalent (S.E.), imports supply about 10% of the total, tillage crops and their by-products some 25%, and the balance, i.e. 65-70%, is supplied in grass. These proportions refer to food consumption by all livestock, including pigs and poultry which eat little grass, and therefore will not apply to the grass-eating animals. Between 80 and 90% of the total food intake of all cattle and sheep is obtained from grass but this proportion will vary considerably between the different types of grazing livestock. Obviously grass will be a relatively less important contributor to the diet of milk cows than with other cattle and sheep.Conserved grass, hay, silage and dried grass, is used in the feeding of dairy cows to a much greater extent than in the feeding of other cattle and sheep and commonly provides about one-third of the winter food of the milk cow, or nearly onefifth of her total annual consumption. Over the grazing season fresh grass supplies about three-quarters of the nutrient requirements of the cow. Over the year grass, in average practice, is the source of more than half the total food of cows.T h e point is illustrated by the data from the Milk Marketing Board (1953) which indicate that about 55% of the energy nutrients eaten annually by cows are, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi