120 A STUDY OF FARM ANIMALS 



market middlings usually sell for several dollars more a ton 

 than bran, especially when there is an active demand. 



Wheat screenings usually consist of shrunken, broken 

 grains of wheat, mixed with weed seeds, pieces of straw, etc. 

 The value of screenings depends upon the amount of grain 

 in it. They have been very extensively fed to fattening 

 sheep in America, especially in the Northwest, near the flour 

 mills. Sheep do well on screenings, and, if one can buy at a 

 cheap enough price, they are a good feed to use. 



Oats are a standard feed for farm animals in all agricul- 

 tural countries. They contain about 10 per cent of digest- 

 ible protein, as compared with about 9 in wheat, but have 

 less carbohydrates and more fat than the wheat. It has 

 often been thought that oats contained some substance that 

 gives life and snap to animals beyond that furnished by any 

 other grain, but chemists have not been able to find this 

 mystical something. Still, it is generally agreed that oats 

 do produce a most excellent effect on the horse, far better 

 than any other grain. Some oats are more chaffy than 

 others. Northern-grown oats are plumper and weigh more 

 than southern ones. In fact, oats do better in the cooler 

 sections of our country, and yield far larger crops. For 

 horses no other feed is so widely used in America or Europe. 

 It is not likely to cause indigestion, and is a safe feed. It is 

 best suited to cattle and hogs when crushed or ground, while 

 sheep will do equally well on it in any form. For young, 

 growing animals it is one of the best feeds we have; for, like 

 bran, it helps to build up a strong, muscular frame. Often 

 oats are very expensive, and their purchase, which may be- 

 come a serious problem with the feeder, should depend on 

 the cost and the purpose for which they are intended. 



Oat hulls are very poor as a feed stuff, for they contain 

 but little nutriment, and are too largely fiber. They are fre- 

 quently mixed with commercial feed stuffs to act as a "filler." 



Barley is a very hard small grain, that as commonly 



