324 Feeds and Feeding. 



The concentrates for work horses can rarely consist wholly of 

 oats because of their cost. Boiled wheat and barley are excellent 

 substitutes, and corn meal, or preferably corn and cob meal, may 

 form from one-third to one-half of the ration. Bran has come into 

 general use as part feed for the horse. Shorts or middlings may 

 be used to the extent of two or three pounds per day. This por- 

 tion of the wheat grain is excellent for the horse, except that the 

 heavy or floury middlings, if fed in quantity, are liable to induce 

 colic with many horses. Cooked feed may be given two or three 

 times a week for cooling the system; in its absence, bran mashes 

 should be given. A small allowance of roots is always in 

 order. 



The work horse should be supplied with about two pounds of 

 provender daily for each hundred pounds of weight. Of this, 

 from ten to eighteen pounds, according to the severity of the labor 

 performed, should be grain in some form. The heavy feeding 

 should come at night, after the long day's work is over and when 

 the animal has time for masticating and digesting his food. After 

 watering comes the administration of the grain, which should 

 constitute one-half to two-thirds of the day's allowance. This 

 may be fed separately, or preferably upon moistened, chaffed hay. 

 The amount of chaffed hay with which the grain is mixed should 

 not exceed one peck in volume. 



Ground grain and chaffed hay are fed in mixed form that the 

 animal may masticate his food and pass it to the stomach more 

 quickly than is possible with the material whole and in dry form. 

 A fair allowance of long hay should always be thrown into the 

 manger for the animal to finish on, after the stomach is replen- 

 ished and while he is resting but still requiring more food. The 

 morning meal should be comparatively light, consisting mostly of 

 grain with some chaffed hay. It should not possess much bulk, 

 and should be in condition to be easily and rapidly consumed so 

 as to be well out of the way when the animal is led from the 

 stable. The mid-day meal is omitted in many stables, but most 

 horsemen hold that some grain should be given at noon, which 

 claim seems reasonable from our knowledge of the horse's stomach 

 and the digestive process. In any case the amount of feed given 

 at mid- day should not be large. 



