LECTURE LXIII. 



FEED, CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF WORK HORSES. 



The feed, care and management of the work horse is a 

 very important subject. It concerns a very large number 

 of peoples. One man will take a horse thin in flesh, work it 

 hard and have the horse gain in flesh on very much less feed 

 than it had before. Another man will take a horse in the 

 height of condition of flesh and fit for work, and in a short 

 time the horse is seen to be dull and losing flesh, notwith- 

 standing that it had all the grain and hay it could consume. 

 This fact is of great significance and opens up a field for 

 investigation. It shows that it is not so much the amount 

 of feed given, as it is the properly balanced ration and the 

 regularity with which the feeding is done, together with the 

 manner of the handling. All of these points are worthy of 

 most careful consideration. 



The average work horse is a hard animal to properly 

 care for on account of the irregularity of his work. During 

 certain seasons of the year he is taxed to his utmost by real 

 hard work. At other times work of a medium nature is 

 demanded, and at certain times he has little or nothing to 

 do, in fact may be idle. This is especially true of the farm 

 work horse. These different changes and demands require 

 special care and feed for the maintenance of good health, 

 flesh and endurance. A horse at real hard work must be more 

 liberally fed, and fed on a ration differing in composition 

 and preparation from the animal that is at light work or 

 idle. Thus we can readily see the necessity of making a 

 very careful study of the animal and its needs at all times. 



A careful study of feeding tests and rations reveals the 

 fact that a horse at real hard work requires a ration of a 

 nitrogenous nature to supply the demand upon the system. 

 Such a horse must also be fed more grain and less roughage 

 than the horse at lighter work. While the grinding of grain 

 and the cutting or chaffing of the roughage is not advisable 

 in feeding horses under ordinary conditions, it may oftentimes 



