grain and salt. Then the advent of oilseed cake had ushered in the new system which improved the rates of growth so much that most farmers were totally reliant on oilseed cake and turnips. In 1858 Frederick Gant (1825-1905), surgeon and anatomist at
the Royal Free Hospital L o n d o n , two y e a r s after returning from the Crimean War, visited the prize-winning animals at the Smithfield show; he realised that the winners were grossly obese, meaning that rosettes were awarded for quantity of fat rather than quality of meat, so he followed them to their respective abattoirs and removed samples of heart lungs liver and muscle for microscopic examination. He observed that fat had substituted muscle
fed to cattle. His formulation of three parts barley to one of linseed had several benefits: It produced good carcase quality with harder fat and less
• •
linseed taint The use of whole linseed avoided the problem of oilcake
adulteration • The system reduced the quantity of turnips required by half, or • Allowed the doubling of stocking rates using the same quantity of turnips
Warnes was a self-publicist and pamphleteer, and in 1846
Figure 3: The Gold Medal, Smithfield Show, 1861.
Acknowledgement to the Farmers Club, London
Figure 4: Prize-winning pigs, Smithfield Show, 1861
Acknowledgement to the Farmers Club, London
fibres throughout the body, par t icular ly the heart, which he attributed to ‘livestock being fed beyond the limits compatible with health’ and ‘we should therefore expect in vain to replenish our own muscles by the use of such food’; he urged for a better system of rearing cattle. So,
almost 100 years after oilseed cake had first been routinely fed to cattle, little to no progress had been made in animal nutrition. Feeding oilseed cake may explain the strange-looking portraits of rectangular cattle1 and sheep, and balloon-like pigs in Georgian and Victorian paintings. However in the early 1840s Mr John Warnes, an independently
wealthy farmer in Trimingham, Norfolk, began feeding experiments – attempting to produce cattle food from domestic raw materials, rather than imported oilseeds. He boiled 75kg water, added 9.5kg powdered whole linseed, stirred for five minutes until a jelly formed, then sprinkled 28.5kg crushed barley on top. The mix was taken off the heat and allowed to simmer. When still hot the compound was poured and pressed into brick-like moulds measuring about 10 x 4 x 2 inches to form cakes. When cold, the cake was cut up like bread and
published a book explaining his systems of: feeding sheep & cattle; house or box feeding (zero grazing); and extolling the benefits of growing linseed (flax) to farmers, and as a means to employ the poor. Within a year, he published variations of his initial formulation where potatoes, carrots (and other root vegetables), oats, grass, clover, hay, straw, peas and beans were used instead of barley, but the foundation remained as 25% linseed meal for cattle. He invented different formulations for sheep and horses with lower levels of linseed, and preferring wheat straw instead of barley for horses. His advice on feeding quantities was ‘little and often’ and ‘as much as the animal wants’, and recommended that linseed must never be fed on its own as ‘it would be too rich and oily, and apt to disagree with the animal’. As far as this author can discover, this is the: • first reference to the words ‘compound’ and ‘cake’ in relation to feeding livestock
• first known feed formulation • first reference to heat-treatment of feed
Figure 5: First known references to the words ‘compound’ and ‘cake’ in relation to feeding livestock from Warnes, 1846
1.
https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-rectangular-cows-of-art-uk FEED COMPOUNDER MARCH/APRIL 2020 PAGE 27
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