90 • THE SCIENTIFIC FEEDING OF ANIMALS 



c. Rye and Wheat 



Botanical and chemical. The cultivated species of rye and wheat arc 

 derived from Secale ccrcale (rye) and the various species of Triticum 

 (v^^heat). The v^^heat plant has been under cultivation much longer than 

 rye. The latter is cultivated chiefly in the colder central districts of 

 Europe. It is extensively imported into Germany from Rumania, Russia 

 and America. Rye, which is always a naked seed, and wheat, which is 

 usually so, are free from strawlike hulls and as a result are poor in 

 crude fiber (1.8 per cent) but correspondingly richer in digestible organic 

 matter: Crude protein 11 per cent, crude fat 1.8 per cent, nitrogen-free 

 extract 70 per cent, mineral matter 2.1 per cent, digestible albumen 7 to 

 11 per cent in full grains and flat grains respectively, starch value 65 to 

 72 per cent in flat grains and full grains respectively. As a rule the 

 flat, stunted, shriveled or poor grades only are used as feeding stuflfs, the 

 better grades being used for human food. 



c 



Fig. 45. Grain of wheat. (X Fig. 46. Grain of barley. 



2.) a, Dorsal; b, ventral side; (X 2.) 

 c, cross section. 



Rye, like oats, is an energy or force producing food rather than a 

 fattening food. When fed to horses, especially fresh in the sheaf, it is 

 apt to cause digestive disturbances, in rare cases cerebral affections and 

 founder (laminitis). Cracked rye and rye flour are also more apt to 

 cause digestive troubles than the same products made from wheat. Rye 

 possesses the property of swelling enormously when moistened {2y2 

 times its normal volume). 



For horses not more than half the oat ration should be replaced with 

 rye. The rye should always be fed whole, boiled 1^ hours, and mixed 

 with chaffed feed. The change must be made gradually. Draft oxen 

 may receive from 4 to 6 pounds and fattening sheep not more than 1 

 pound of rye, prepared as for horses. Boiled rye is sometimes given as a 

 special diet to cattle run down in condition from the effects of disease. 

 Swine may be given 2 pounds of rye daily (for fattening), but always 

 cracked and scalded or steamed and mixed with other feed, such as 

 potatoes. 



Wheat has been cultivated from the earliest historic times. In 

 China it was cultivated three thousand years before the birth of Christ. 

 It was formerly much used as a horse feed. It is richer in nitrogen than 

 any other grain (12.6 per cent protein). Many varieties are known 

 and cultivated — winter, summer, awned, awnless, etc., and these are 



