628 NUTRITION OF FARM ANIMALS 



added both to ordinary feeds and to a ration made up of ab- 

 normally flavorless materials showed no effect upon the per- 

 centage digestibility. 



734. Water drinking. Stress has been laid by numerous 

 writers on the supposed effect of water drinking on digestion, 

 particularly by the horse. It has been asserted that drinking 

 after feeding tends to dilute the gastric juice and to wash the 

 feed out of the stomach and the feeder has been advised to 

 water his animals before feeding rather than after feeding. 



Even were the supposed facts true, it is questionable whether 

 the conclusions drawn would be warranted, since the stomach, 

 far from being the sole organ of digestion, serves largely as a 

 sort of preliminary reservoir (119), and the extensive intestines 

 of farm animals afford ample opportunity for the digestion of 

 any substances which may escape action in the stomach. As 

 a matter of fact, however, no such washing out or degree of 

 dilution occurs as has been supposed. As has already been 

 stated (131), the contents of the stomach are semi-solid rather 

 than liquid and, as shown by their stratification, much less 

 mixing of them takes place than is sometimes imagined. Scheu- 

 nert x has shown that in the horse the larger part of the water 

 drunk passes along the walls of the stomach and around its 

 contents and is quite promptly discharged into the small 

 intestine. This is especially the case when the stomach is 

 well filled with feed. In the contrary case more water is 

 retained, but in no case did the total dilution of the entire 

 stomach contents exceed about 10 per cent. Moreover, the 

 water which enters the duodenum is rather rapidly resorbed 

 and has no material effect in the transportation of feed into the 

 large intestine. 



In view of these facts it is not surprising to find that the 

 few digestion trials which have been made show no evidence of 

 a decrease in digestibility as a result of drinking after eating. 



Gabriel and Weiske 2 in experiments on two sheep found no signifi- 

 cant difference in the percentage digestibility of a ration of oats and 

 hay, whether the water was given before or after feeding or kept con- 

 stantly before the animals. The percentage digestibility of the 

 organic matter was: 



1 Arch. Physiol. (Pfliiger), 144 (1912), 411 ; 151 (1913), 39&. 



2 Landw. Vers. Stat., 45 (1895), 311. 



