304 Feeds and Feediiig. 



digestible matter necessitates the consumption of too large a 

 quantity to permit its extensive use with horses in active service. 

 For growing colts and idle horses, bright, clean clover hay may 

 often be fed with marked economy. "With corn fodder or bright 

 straw it may constitute the sole roughage for such animals. 



480. Fodder corn and stover. — Fodder corn, grown so thickly 

 as to permit of only small "nubbins" forming, and cured in the 

 shock into a brij^ht, dust-free forage, is one of the best articles 

 available for roughage in horse feeding. While the stalk and 

 husk will be left uneaten, the leaves disappear T\ith a relish 

 when offered to horses under any conditions. Not only are 

 corn leaves usually quite free from dust, but they are palatable 

 and full of nutriment. For stallions, brood mares, idle horses 

 and growing colts, corn forage of good quality will be found an 

 economical substitute for timothy hay. When the tonnage of a 

 field of fodder corn is compared with the yield of timothy hay fiom 

 a like aiea, it is apparent that the forage of the corn plant should 

 hold a prominent place with horsemen who seek economy while 

 at the same time wishing ro supply a palatable, nutritions rough- 

 age. See Chapter X. 



488. Straw. — Some straw can always be fed to horses, the 

 amount varying with the work and the purpose for which tlie 

 animal is used. Idle horses, having ample time for masticating 

 and digesting their feed, can subsist almost wholly on good bright 

 straw; hard-^vorked animals and those required to move rapidly 

 can make use of only a little, — the feeder must judge from the 

 conditions how much to supply. It is a notable fact that many 

 horses are fed costly hay for roughage when cheaper straw or 

 fodder corn would prove equally satisfactory. In relative value 

 for horse feeding, the straws rank in the following order: Oat, 

 barley, wheat, rye, the last named being of slight utility. 



482. MiSlet hay injurious to horses. — Hinebauch, veterinarian 

 of the Xortli Dakota Station, ^ reports that during the winter of 

 1891-92 an ailment passing under the name of the ''millet dis- 

 ease ' ' prevailed in North Dakota, about one animal in every ten 

 so affected dying. It was called the millet disease because from 

 ninety-five to ninety-eight animals out of every hundred affected 



»BuL 7. 



