4 ms·

At least it isn't sawdust.

• whyenot 10y ago
  Apparently dairy cows are perfectly happy and healthy eating a diet that is mostly sawdust. At least, that's what I learned when I took a course on ruminant nutrition and digestion when I was a graduate student at UC Davis.
  • blackguardx 10y ago
    That makes some sense. Cows should be able to live on anything that is mostly cellulose. Whether they are "happy" about it is another question.
  • skissane 10y ago
    Interesting article I just found: http://www.thegazette.com/2013/02/25/northeast-iowa-cattle-herd-thriving-on-sawdust-based-feed http://www.thegazette.com/2013/02/25/northeast-iowa-cattle-h... Apparently, cattle digest cellulose fine, but the lignin in the wood interferes with their cellulose digestion. Treating the sawdust with nitric acid and heat breaks the cellulose-lignin bond and makes it more digestible. (Due to onerous government regulation of nitric acid, the farmer in question went on to develop an alternative method of sawdust processing which doesn't use it, but the article doesn't provide any details on that.)
• sporkologist 10y ago
  Or melamine.