Feeding ammoniated cottonseed meal to lactating dairy cattle

Cottonseed meal is the major protein supplement used for ruminants in the western portion of the United States. With the rapidly increasing food shortage facing the world, it is certain that new scientific and technological developments will be removing most of the natural protein from all sources to be used as human food. Oil seed proteins have already been constantly increasing in value and are becoming scarce for cattle feeding purposes. Normally, the United States produces annually about 13.5 million tons of oilseed protein and 5.7 million tons of animal and grain proteins, for a total of 19 million tons of protein supplement. As a means of extending the protein supplies for ruminants, non-protein nitrogen has been added to various sources and fed to ruminants replacing part of the natural proteins. It is noteworthy that, to date, the primary effort has been directed toward ammoniating materials rich in carbohydrates such as silage and grains that are not protein sources. However, from a practical standpoint, it would appear that ammoniating a relatively high protein ingredient, such as cottonseed meal, would be far better. The experiment described here was designed to obtain information concerning what effect a relatively low protein, nitrogen enriched cottonseed meal would have on milk production. The addition of a nitrogen compound to such a cottonseed meal might be one way to overcome the higher cost and scarcity of protein used in feeding dairy cattle.