DISEASES OF ANIMALS 163 



3. Charcoal may be given occasionally with benefit to all animals, 

 and may be fed with salt. 



4. Feed with extreme regularity, and according to the requirements of 

 animals, in quantity and nutritive value. 



5. Developing or growing animals, females with young, pregnant 

 females, males for breeding purposes, work animals and animals not at 

 work require different feeds, in quantity and quality. 



6. Animals at pasture require attention. Pasturage may be adequate 

 or it may need to be supplemented with additional feed. 



7. Make all changes in rations gradually. Add any new variety of 

 feed to the ration in small and successively increasing amounts until the 

 desired addition is secured. 



8. Unwholesome food is frequently produced on farms, and, being 

 unmarketable, is kept for feeding purposes. Such foods may be fed safely 

 if proper methods are employed. 



Damaged grain, soft, rotten, mouldy, worm-eaten and otherwise 

 unwholesome, may be made safe for feeding if it is first shelled from the 

 cob or threshed from the straw and then carefully fanned to remove the 

 light, badly damaged and unwholesome grains. By the same process, the 

 spores of mold and poisonous dust are largely eliminated. 



Damaged fodder and hay may be made less objectionable and safer 

 by shaking out as much as possible the dust and must as it is removed from 

 the stack. It should then be run through a cutting box and cut into con- 

 venient lengths. This cut fodder should be mixed with a proper amount of 

 grain and salted at the rate of one pound of salt to the hundred pounds of 

 chop. Moisten the entire mass and after macerating for several hours, it 

 can be fed. Where this is practiced, the chop box should be kept scrupu- 

 lously clean. 



Comfort. Animals may be well bred and well fed and yet not develop 

 nor thrive properly if kept in uncomfortable surroundings. 



Stables which are comfortable should be well lighted, but the light 

 must be admitted into the building in such a way as not to subject the 

 animals to a constant glare of bright sunlight and they should not face dark, 

 unlighted walls. Stables, however, should be so arranged that all parts 

 of the enclosure are well lighted with diffuse light. They should be devoid 

 of dark recesses which might serve for the accumulation of filth, as breeding 

 places for vermin or for the decomposition of feed and fodder. 



Mangers and racks for feed should be convenient alike for feeder and 

 animals and easy to clean. Refuse must not be allowed to accumulate, 

 as when moistened with saliva it sticks to the mangers and affords an ideal 

 place for decomposition processes and the development of attendant poisons. 



Floors must be kept with even surfaces, and be clean. If hard and 

 impervious, they should be well bedded. If porous, they must not be 

 permitted to become foul. Foot and hoof troubles, lameness and foul 

 skins develop in dirty stalls. 



