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The Vitamin D of Alfalfa and Prairie Hay and its Utilization by Dairy Cows

Dairy Department, South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, Brookings

ABSTRACT

Representative samples from comparable lots of alfalfa hay and prairie hay were assayed for vitamin D. The alfalfa contained 1.10 International units, and the prairie hay 0.55 International units of vitamin D per gram. When these lots of hay were fed to comparable groups of dairy cows the butterfat produced by the group receiving alfalfa hay was more potent in vitamin D than the butterfat from the group receiving prairie hay, which was in turn more potent than butterfat from a beet pulp control group. Between 1 and 2 per cent of the vitamin D in these normal rations was recovered in the milk. Attempts to quantitatively concentrate the vitamin D of butterfat to assist in the assay of relatively impotent samples were unsuccessful.