24 



GROTTND AND UNQBOUND FEED. 



Opinions differ as regards the advantages of grinding grain. For 

 horses which are out of the stable during the day and worked hard, it 

 is quite generally believed that all grains, with the possible exception 

 of oats, should be ground, and for those at extremely hard work, all 

 grain should be ground and mixed with chaffed hay. For idle horses 

 oats or grain should not be ground, nor should hay or straw be chaffed. 

 In other words, provided the animals have time to masticate their 

 ration thoroughly, grinding is not necessary. When this is not the 

 case, grinding takes the place of thorough mastication to some extent, 

 and increases the assimilation of the ration. 



When whole oats were compared with ground wheat and bran at the 

 North Dakota Station, the horses fed the former ration ate somewhat 

 more and showed a slight loss in weight, while doing a little less work 

 than those fed the ground grain. At the Utah Station, tests of the 

 comparative merits of ground and unground corn, oats, and wheat fed 

 under different experimental conditions indicated that the ground and 

 unground grains were equally satisfactory. When whole and ground 

 oats, corn, and barley were compared for colts at the Iowa Station, 

 somewhat larger gains were made on the ground feed. 



The comparative digestibility of different ground and unground 

 feeding stuffs was tested at the Maryland Station. It appeared that 

 ground corn and oats were more thoroughly digested than the unground 

 grain. In this connection it may be noted that similar results have 

 been obtained in tests with other farm animals, but it is commonly 

 believed that the difference in digestibility is often not sufficient to pay 

 for the cost of grinding. 



From all the American tests, and those which have been made in 

 Europe, it appears fair to say that there is no very marked advantage 

 in grinding grain for healthy horses with good teeth. 



CUT AND UNCUT COARSE FODDER. 



It is perhaps the general opinion that when horses have ample time 

 for chewing and digesting their feed there is no necessity for chaffing 

 or cutting hay and straw. When the time for feeding is limited 

 chaffing and cutting coarse fodder is regarded as advantageous. This 

 is an item of special importance with hard-worked horses kept in the 

 stable only at night. Furthermore, chaffed feed occupies less space 

 for storage than uncut ha}^ or straw, and can be readily handled. 

 Shredding corn fodder is regarded as an economical practice, but 

 apparently few experiments on the comparative merits of shredded 

 and whole corn fodder for horses have yet been reported. No marked 

 variation was observed in the weights of two lots of horses fed whole 



