276 Feeds and Feeding. 



434. Nutrients required for maintenance and work. — Wolff's ex- 

 periments show that a horse of average size will do medium hard 

 work and maintain his weight on a ration containing about 12 

 pounds of digestible matter. A nutritive ratio of 1:G.4 proved 

 better than the narrow ration of 1:3. When, as in the later ex- 

 periments, less than 9.5 pounds of digestible matter were supplied 

 in the ration, the weight of the horse decreased, the decrease 

 being, under otherwise similar conditions, more marked when a 

 narrow nutritive ratio (1:3.4) was fed than when a wider ratio 

 (1: 5.6) was given. (445) When heavier work was done, a sup- 

 ply of 12 pounds of digestible matter did not suffice to maintain 

 the weight of the horse. This could only be attained by furnish- 

 ing larger quantities of nutrients, viz., about 15.5 pounds. 



The digestible nutrients necessary to maintain a horse of 1,100 

 pounds in a medium nutritive condition, when not perforjiiiiig 

 any mechanical work, was found in repeated experiments with 

 three horses to be 9.25 pounds^ on an average, when a consider- 

 able portion, at least one-half, of the ration was made up of 

 coarse feed, viz., meadow hay. This proportion of coarse feed 

 will hold good for farm horses doing an average day's work in 

 rather slow time. Horses which are required to do heavy work 

 and in rapid time, as, for instance, mail-coach or army liorses, 

 must have rations which are easily digested, and they should 

 consist of concentrated feeding stuffs with some chaffed straw and 

 little or no hay. * 



435. Value of the various components of fodders. — According 

 to Wolff's experiments, the digestible albuminoids of the feed 

 have, beyond a certain minimum, no higher value for production 

 of work than the same quantity of starch or of the starch equiva- 

 lent of digestible non -nitrogenous substances. (Chapter V, pt. 1. ) 

 He found that the digestible organic substances in coarse fodders, 

 mainly meadow hay, have considerably lower value for the pro- 

 duction of work in the case of the horse than have the sa)ne sub- 

 stances in concentrated feeding stuffs, — for instance, oats. The 

 explanation given, the correctness of which is disputed by good 

 authorities, is that the crude fiber, largely present in the coai'se 



» Wolff, Ldw. Jahrb., 1887, Suppl. IIL 



