HAY 



glass case to hold the bits which are not in use it will be all 

 the better. In small establishments where it is not necessary 

 to erect a separate boiling house with a copper to supply hot 

 water, the heating apparatus of the harness room may consist 

 of an ordinary range, which will heat the place and the water 

 as well. 



Hay. — The importance of providing horses with hay of 

 sound quality and high nutritive power is often overlooked 

 by owners, who pay the penalty through their horses losing 

 strength, or even their lives, as many deaths have resulted 

 from eating mouldy hay which has set up inflammation of 

 the bowels. As a general thing it is not wise to give a horse 

 long hay, that is, hay of the same length as it is when it is 

 cut, as he is apt to pull it out of the rack and let it fall 

 on the ground, where it gets trod upon and soiled, in which 

 case he may refuse to eat it, or if he does swallow it, the 

 hay will not do him much good. The last thing at night 

 when a horse is bedded up, an armful, more or less, of long 

 hay may be placed in the rack for him to pick over and 

 amuse himself with, but during the day it is best to give 

 him his hay in the form of chaff mixed with his corn, 

 as this arrangement compels him to masticate his food 

 properly. The best quality of all is upland hay, and it 

 should be bright-looking and crisp, rather green in colour, 

 and possessed of an attractive smell and pleasant flavour. 

 On the other hand, hay which comes from wet land is coarse, 

 hard, darker in colour, and comparatively odourless and 

 tasteless, added to which its nutritive powers are low. Bad 

 specimens of this sort should always be rejected by horse 

 owners, especially if they contain quantities of weeds, as they 

 often do ; and hay which possesses an unpleasant smell or 

 appears mouldy should on no account be used, unless it has 

 been previously steamed. A good deal of the virtue of hay 

 must depend upon the weather at the time it was cut, and 

 this will also influence its quality after it has been stacked 

 for a while. New hay — that is, under a year old — is greener 



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