POINTS IN COMPOUNDING RATIONS 107 



The concentrate by itself would not suit the peculiar 

 digestive system of ruminants, which is intended by 

 nature to deal with bulky foods. Bulky foods, there- 

 fore, serve a useful purpose in opening up highly 

 concentrated foods, thus enabling the digestive juices 

 to do their work more effectively. 



Laxativeness. Too much stress has probably been 

 placed in the past on the actual chemical composition of 

 the food, while what may be called in contradistinction 

 the " mechanical " composition has been largely over- 

 looked. By "mechanical" composition, is meant the 

 ease or difficulty with which foods are masticated and 

 passed through the alimentary canal. Foods like 

 pasture grass, roots, linseed cake, bran, etc., pass along 

 the food canal with comparative ease, and are called 

 " laxative foods " ; while others like hay, straw, Bombay 

 cotton cake, and other concentrated foods high in fibre, 

 only pass slowly or with difficulty, and are called 

 astringent or " binding " foods. A ration extreme in 

 either of these ways does not give the digestive organs 

 a fair chance of doing their duty on the food. Scouring 

 animals do not usually fatten or increase in live weight 

 rapidly, nor do animals which are too stiff in the dung ; 

 a happy medium is eminently desirable, hence a great 

 thing in making up a ration is to blend it so that it will 

 pass through the animal at a rate which will enable it 

 to get the maximum benefit out of the food. 



The writer has studied the reports of most of the 

 cattle and sheep feeding experiments which have been 

 carried out in recent years in this country, and it appears 

 fairly obvious that most of the disappointing rations 

 which have been used have failed on the mechanical 

 side, i.e., in being too high in fibre and " too binding." 

 On the other hand, palatable rations comparatively low 



