The Book of Alfalfa: History, Cultivation and Merits / Its Uses as a Forage and Fertilizer

The growing appreciation of alfalfa as a stock and dairy food and the expense of baling and shipping it as hay, the loss of leaves, and the liability to heat and mold unless well cured, have led to the manufacture from it of several food preparations. These in some cases are made by simply grinding into a meal, and in others by mixing the meal with molasses, or a variety of food products, and assumed condiments and appetizers.

The Colorado station in a feeding test concluded that the ground alfalfa was not an economical feed for fattening pigs. With cut alfalfa hay costing $8 a ton and ground alfalfa $16 a ton the cost of producing one hundred pounds of gain with the former was $2.62 and with the alfalfa meal $3.12. With corn and cut alfalfa hay fed in equal parts by weight the cost of producing one hundred pounds of gain was $2.72. With corn and alfalfa meal fed in equal parts by weight the cost was $3.96. It is not improbable, however, that better results would have been obtained if a less proportion of ground or cut alfalfa had been fed. It is also probable that the hog’s grinding machinery is better adapted to his digestive apparatus than is any other.

PROFESSOR COTTRELL ON ALFALFA MEAL

It is worth while, however, to consider the arguments in favor of grinding alfalfa. Prof. H. M. Cottrell says:

“Grinding alfalfa increases its digestibility. How much has not been determined. Grinding increases the digestibility of corn and oats as much as 14 per cent, and of wheat 10 per cent. It is probable that there is a greater gain in digestibility from grinding alfalfa, a coarse feed, than there is from grinding grain.

“When alfalfa is to be fed at a distance from the place where grown it must be baled for shipping. When the bales are opened and scattered in feeding a considerable part of the leaves is wasted. Over 8 per cent of the protein in alfalfa is found in the leaves, and the loss of protein from leaves wasted in feeding baled hay is frequently from one-fourth to one-half of the total amount in the original hay. With ground alfalfa there is no waste in feeding either from leaf or stem. Alfalfa ground is in the best condition for shipping and handling cheaply and without waste.

“Ground alfalfa is not only a good feed itself but when mixed with grain aids in the digestion of the other feeds, enabling the feeder to get more out of his home grown grain.

“Experiments have not been made to determine the exact value of this diluting effect of alfalfa meal in increasing the feed value of heavy grains. Tests have shown that corn-and-cob meal has the same feeding value as an equal weight of clear corn meal. Practically worthless ground cobs by their ‘lightening up’ the heavy corn meal add 20 per cent to the feeding value of the meal with which they are mixed. It is reasonable to believe that a rich feed like ground alfalfa has even a greater influence when mixed with corn meal. The more intimate the mixture the greater the benefits from alfalfa, and for this reason ground alfalfa is far superior to the whole hay.

“Grinding alfalfa hay reduces the power needed to digest and assimilate it. It takes power for an animal to chew the feed, digest it and bring about the chemical changes that convert it into flesh or milk. All this energy is taken from the actual food material in the alfalfa. Experiments show that a much larger amount of food value is used up in this way with coarse feeds than with concentrated fine feeds. In corn, a concentrated feed easily worked up in the animal’s body, three-fourths of the protein actually in the hay is digested; and in straw, a still coarser feed, only one-tenth. Forty-eight per cent of all the energy in coarse hay is used up in chewing and digesting it, while only twenty per cent of the energy in oats is used in these processes. This shows the value of preparing feed in such a way as to require the least effort on the part of the animal to use it.

“In a well constructed mill it requires one horse-power ten hours to grind alfalfa sufficient for a month’s ration for a dairy cow in full milk. This indicates what a saving the grinding of alfalfa makes in its effective use by an animal.

“Experiments show that good alfalfa hay and wheat bran have practically the same value in feeding for milk. In a test made of bran and alfalfa meal, two lots of cows were selected that were giving equal weights of milk. One lot was fed bran, the other lot the same weight of alfalfa meal. For each 100 pounds of milk given by the cows fed bran, 141 pounds were yielded by the cows fed alfalfa meal.”

As an example, “Alfamo” is the name of one of the numerous new feeds on the market, having alfalfa meal as its principal ingredient. After a year of experimenting with grinding and mixing various feeds it was determined by the manufacturers that a feed made of three parts alfalfa meal and one part beet-sugar molasses would possess a very high value. The ingredients are mixed by a special apparatus and subjected to a process which retains and preserves the high nutriment of the feed.

Prof. Samuel Avery of the Nebraska station made an analysis of “Alfamo,” which showed the following composition:

Professor Avery also states: “This feed was made by mixing molasses with alfalfa meal which contained 16.15 per cent protein. It will be noticed that the protein content is not greatly reduced, while a large quantity of nutritious matter has been added in the molasses. An analysis of the molasses used in this product, showed practically fifty per cent sugar, and it should be remembered that the sugar in molasses is all digestible and ready for the animal without extra effort on the animal’s part, which is not so in corn or other foods, strong in carbohydrates from which the starch must be extracted by the digestive apparatus.”

SOLVING THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM

Several mills for the manufacture of alfalfa foods have been and are being established, and it is reasonable to assume that the use of these foods will become quite general in cities and districts remote from the alfalfa regions. Whether or not the actual feeding value is appreciably increased, or the nutritive constituents made more thoroughly available, is as yet not determined by sufficient tests, nor has it been determined by any station test that any factory food preparation is more economical than alfalfa hay, where the hay can be obtained well cured and with a reasonable proportion of its leaves. It is altogether probable, however, that alfalfa meal will be more economical in distant cities than baled hay. If these preparations of alfalfa prove to be satisfactory to consumers in distant markets, it will lead to the multiplication of mills in the alfalfa regions, thereby decreasing the cost of transportation and giving the grower a wider and probably a better market. The use of the meal or the food preparations is likely to prove most especially valuable for dairy cows and poultry.