130 THE STOCKFEEDER'S COMPANION 



they can be fed to horses as part of the ration without 

 much fear. 



For calves the gruel fed to them may be made by 

 steeping the meals in cold water for half a day before 

 feeding, instead of scalding it and feeding almost 

 immediately. 



8. Cooking or Steaming. This is applied to foods 

 which have either been steamed or treated with hot water. 

 It has the effect of softening the food, and often improving 

 the palatability. Experiments do not appear to show 

 that cooked food is more digestible than uncooked, 

 although it may be more readily eaten by stock. 



With horses, foods which have been boiled (beans, 

 barley, linseed) or treated with boiling water and made 

 into a mash (bran), are used in the winter months to 

 facilitate the casting of the coat The same foods may 

 be used as occasional laxatives. 



For pigs, potatoes may be boiled or steamed and 

 mashed up with meals, so as to make an attractive feed. 



Cake manufacturers generally cook or steam the 

 foods before they press them into cakes for cattle 

 feeding. Calf meals are often made into gruels with 

 boiling water before being served to young calves ; 

 those calf meals containing ground linseed cake should 

 be moistened and stirred with a little cold water before 

 adding boiling water, otherwise the gruel is apt to form 

 into lumps and the inside of the lumps remain uncooked. 



9. Warming foods in cold weather may have a 

 rather considerable effect, seeing that all cold food 

 taken into the system must be heated up to the 

 temperature of the body at the expense of the food ; 

 further, the effect of a sudden chill on the system of 

 stock generally does not tend to improve the health. 

 There appears to be ground for believing that in cooked 



