The Behavior of Cows on Alfalfa Hay as the Sole Roughage and on Alfalfa and Timothy Combined

Cows which are fed on grain with either timothy or alfalfa hay as the sole roughage are likely to consume rather small quantities of roughage and sometimes have periods of digestive disturbance and lack of appetite in which they show a very definite distaste for the kind of hay that they have had for some time past. Feeding the other kind of hay under such circumstances has often been followed by fairly rapid recovery from the digestive depression. The continued feeding of high-quality alfalfa and timothy together, under such circumstances that the cows could eat as much of each kind of hay as they wished, has resulted in a decidedly larger consumption of hay and in a larger milk yield than when alfalfa of good quality was the only kind of hay fed.