FOR KIDS: Better chow yields more milk

A more nutritious form of corn for dairy cows boosts farm profits, teen investigator finds

A more nutritious form of corn for dairy cows boosts farm profits, teen investigator finds

By Sid Perkins

Web edition: May 28, 2013

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Milking more profit

This teen dairy farmer from Ogden, Utah, finds that feeding his cows a costly but more digestible corn boosts their milk production ? and his profits. Patrick

Credit: Thornton, SSP

Sometimes less really is more. Though a variety of corn known as brown midrib doesn?t grow as tall as other types of corn, it does provide cows with better nutrition. The rub: It costs more. But the value of the bonus milk produced by cows fed the short corn more than covers its extra costs, a 15-year-old dairy farmer now reports.

Bennett Lee Gibson of Fremont High School in Ogden, Utah, presented his findings May 13 in Phoenix, Ariz. He was a finalist?at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The Society for Science & the Public, which created the fair in 1950, still runs the competition. (SSP also publishes Science News and Science News for Kids.)

Visit the new Science News for Kids website and read the full story: Better chow yields more milk.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350662/title/FOR_KIDS_Better_chow_yields_more_milk

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