"Dave Chalton" wrote in message
om...
Thought this may be worth a little discussion, especially for all of
you who are convinced that land is better put to crops for human
consumption than for animals.

I heard it postulated today, in a Crop Mechanisation lecture, that the
power consumption of a powered forage harvester giving a precision (or
metered) chop, working width maybe three metres, in
chemical-energy-required terms, would, in one years use on one farm,
consume enough energy (chemical) to feed 3000 people for a year. Of
course, the conversion can't be workied, as science has yet to find an
efficient way of feeding people unrefined crude oil, but it does give
some food for thought perhaps.
I would be glad of some other views on this, either for or against, or
either, since at the moment I'm taking that with a pinch of salt, so
to speak!

Dave

Dave,

There are two serious problems. You are hauling wet feed that will loose 85
to 90% of it weight either drying out or making pee for the cattle. The
energy density of the dry matter is not very high even on a dry mater basis.
I'll be kind had give it 60% so for every pound of forage you haul you haul
9.4 pounds of feed for ever 100 pound of fodder you haul that the cow can
use and 90.6 pounds of water and indigestible material.

While with wheat dry from the bin you haul 91 pound of usable feed for every
hundred pound so wheat you haul that is fit for man and beast alike. If you
really want to be effecting haul 100 pounds of cotton seed to a feed lot.
ten pounds of It will replace the neturantiants in 14 pounds of corn and
replace all the hay in the ration and also provide all the protien need for
the steers or bulls. The fuzzy linters replace the hay as roughage, It is
about 30% protien and the oil content is high enough that it will replace
120 percent of its weight in grain for energy.

Cotton seed can only be fed to ruminates since it is toxic to simple stomach
animals. In most climates it can only be fed in the winter because all the
fate elevates the animals body tempeterure producing extra energy to digest
it and mistakes feeding such as letting a feed bunk run dry or not noticing
a cow going off feed can end up in foundered or dead animals in short order.

One of the primary costs of feed is the drayage to put it in front of the
animal. It does not appear by magic in the bin. Green cut forage is very
very heavy and has a short shelf life if not ensiled and if you do that you
have to handle than mess yet another time in the winter.


Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.couger.com/gcouger