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The Vitamin A Activity of Butter Produced by Cows Fed Alfalfa Hay and Soybean Hay Cut in Different Stages of Maturity^*

Departments of Dairy Husbandry and Research Chemical Laboratory Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station, Lafayette, Indiana

ABSTRACT

1. Comparisons were made of the vitamin A value of artificially dried and field cured alfalfa and soybean hay, cut at two different stages of maturity. Studies were also made of the relationship between the vitamin A activity of the hays and the butters produced by cows fed these respective hays.
   
2. Artificially dried hays were superior in vitamin A value to the corresponding field cured hays.
   
3. Hays made from younger plants possessed a higher vitamin A value than did hays made from older plants.
   
4. Alfalfa plants contain greater vitamin A potency than do soybean plants.
   
5. Dairy cows when fed artificially dried hays produced butter of higher vitamin A value than when fed field cured hays.
   
6. Artificially dried young alfalfa hay when fed to dairy cows produced butter of exceptionally high vitamin A value—45 units per gram.
   
7. Soybean hay made from plants after the beans were well formed in the pods suppressed the formation of vitamin A in the butter sufficiently to produce a butter of only medium high vitamin A activity. Soybean hay made from young plants and fed to dairy cows did not show this suppressing action and produced butter of high vitamin A activity.
   

^* Published with the approval of the Director of the Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station.