Studies in the Growth and Nutrition of Dairy Calves

Summary From the work reported here it would appear that the following deductions are possible: 1. Milk though a suitable ration for young calves cannot maintain ruminants indefinitely. 2. The addition of a grain mixture of corn, oats, bran and oil meal to a ration consisting solely of milk impairs the growth of the calves and leads to death even more rapidly than a ration of milk only. 3. The cause of the earlier death on the addition of the grains is probably due to the depletion of the body stores of calcium due to the fact that the grains contain more magnesium than calcium and calcium must consequently be drawn from the body, especially the bones, to take care of this excess of magnesium. 4. The addition of alfalfa hay to a ration of milk or of milk, corn, oats, bran and oil meal will bring back to good growing condition animals which have fallen to a low place of nutrition on the rations mentioned. 5. Milk and alfalfa hay can be used to grow out calves satisfactorily. 6. The beneficial effects of the alfalfa hay are apparently not due absolutely to the nutrients it supplies as an abundance of nutrients had been provided in the other experimental rations. 7. It is apparently not probable that the alfalfa hay adds in appreciable amounts vitamines which might have been absent from the other rations used. 8. Where alfalfa is added to a ration of milk and the grain mixture used, it would appear that part of the beneficial effect of the alfalfa is due to the fact that it increases the calcium content as compared to the magnesium content of the ration and thus conserves the calcium stores of the body. 9. The main advantage derived from the alfalfa hay seems to be due to the fact that this feed, being bulky in character, helps to distend the digestive tract of the calf and so renders proper digestion possible.