88 LIVESTOCK ON THE FARM 



soil. The soil will thus yield more and not become exhausted 

 so soon. 



Number of Feeds per Day. — It was shown previously that 

 the stomach and digestive system generalh' need a rest between 

 meals. The question then arises how many times a day should 

 an animal be fed? ]\Ian eats from two to five or six times per 

 day. Most people feed their animals two or three times a 

 day and as a rule such feeding is good practice, but young 

 animals should be fed more frequently. 



The young of all farm animals take their feed quite fre- 

 quently from their mothers. Suppose a young animal before 

 weaning gets its daily ration in five to ten portions, and im- 

 mediately after weaning is allowed to take its daily feed in 

 only three equal portions. The change would be too sudden. 

 This would be the case, also, because a young animal cannot 

 eat as much at a time as a grown animal. 



Young animals have feeds that are more easily and more 

 quickly digested than the feeds fed to the older ones. The 

 digestive apparatus, therefore, gets its needed rest and the 

 animal also gets the nutrients needed for rapid and economical 

 growth But the young animal is not able to store up as much 

 material for future use. It, therefore, must be fed frequently. 

 A well-developed and well-fed cow can live six months without 

 salt because it uses during this time the salt that was stored in 

 the body from previous feeding. The calf does not have this 

 store of material, therefore must be fed more often. The cow 

 also will do better if fed more regularly, that is more often with 

 respect to all the necessary ingredients of a balanced ration. 



Many mature farm animals are fed successfully twice a 

 day, and this is enough. Some, such as the hard-working 

 horse or dairy cow are fed three times a day. Young animals 

 should be fed three times and the very young ones five times 

 a day. Of course, there are always allowances to be made, as 

 when they have pasture, hay, or other feeds before them 

 at all times. It is not best to have hay before the animals 

 all the time, but that will be discussed later. 



Grinding Feeds. — Grinding does not add anything of value 

 to any feed as far as the feed itself is concerned. Sometimes 

 people buy ground alfalfa and because it costs them a big price 



