WINTER FEEDING OF LIVE STOCK 57I 



tion in which it cannot make the best use of the expensive food 

 it consumes. 



2. Regularity^ especially in feeding and watering, is very im- 

 portant. Animals will always thrive best when the hours of feed- 

 ing are regularly established, so that they will come with full 

 appetite to each meal. In establishments where feeding is done 

 by the clock, the animals will lie quietly down until very nearly 

 the time for feeding. As the hour approaches they will get up 

 up, eager and expectant, ready to attack their rations with good 

 appetite. If they are fed sometimes at long, sometimes at short 

 intervals, they will eat less, will chew' the cud less contentedly, 

 and will be generally restless and uneasy, expecting something to 

 be given them whenever a man enters the stables, and when food 

 is given them, eating it much more daintily. 



3. Temperature. — Probably the first use that the animal organ- 

 ism makes of food consumed is to appropriate it to maintaining the 

 proper temperature of the body. Heat is, to a certain extent, 

 constantly given ofF in respiration : air thrown out from the lungs 

 is always warmer than when taken in. The additional heat is 

 manufactured in the system, by the union of certain elements of 

 the food with the oxygen of the air inhaled. There is very little 

 difference in the temperature of the air breathed out in cold 

 weather and in warm, in cold stables and in warm ones. If the 

 air of the stable is at 50°, and is exhaled at 90°, it has taken 40° 

 of heat from the system ; while if it was taken in at zero, it 

 would have taken 90° from the system. Probably this illustration 

 is not scientifically exact, but it sufficiently exhibits the princi- 

 ple. The extra amount of heat required to raise the breath to the 

 standard temperature is produced by the consumption of parts of 

 the food, which, if not so wasted, might have gone to form fat or 

 butter ; hence we see the importance of protecting our stock from 

 undue exposure to the cold. The animal is surrounded by warm 

 air, that is to say, the spaces in its hairy covering are filled with 

 air of which the temperature is elevated by the escape of heat from 

 the body. When this air is once sufficiently warmed, the animal's 

 coat preventing its rapid change or circulation, it loses its heat but 



