35& FEEDING FARM ANIMALS 



for some kinds of feeding. When the crushed grain is 

 soaked or mixed with cut fodder before being fed, the ad- 

 vantage from crushing is lost. Grinding grain, rather than 

 crushing it, will always be more practiced on the farm, 

 since the machinery for grinding is now in place on nearly 

 all farms where grinding is done, since such machinery is 

 better adapted to preparing small and hard grains for feed- 

 ing, and since it has higher adaptation for varying the de- 

 grees of fineness in the grinding. 



The degree of fineness to which grain shall be ground, 

 should be determined by the kind of the grain, the way it is 

 to be fed, and the animals which are to consume it. It will 

 probably be correct to say, that the smaller and harder the 

 grain is, the more finely should it be ground. Corn and cob 

 meal should be more finely ground than corn meal for aver- 

 age uses, the cob*being less digestible. When meal is to be 

 fed directly to animals in the unsoaked form, it should be 

 finely ground so that the digestive fluids may the more 

 readily act upon it; but when thus ground, some kinds of 

 meal call for admixture with some substance to render the 

 mass less adhesive in the stomach. When meal is to be 

 soaked sufficiently long to soften it, fine grinding is not 

 necessary, and the same is true of meal which is first mixed 

 with cut fodders before being fed to ruminants. Very 

 young animals call for meal more finely ground than will 

 suffice for those that are older. 



Whether the meal should be ground on the farm 

 and by the farmers own machinery, by portable ma- 

 chines which travel from place to place, or by stationary 

 mills which take in custom work, is an economic ques- 

 tion that must be determined by such considerations as 

 the volume of the work to be done, the distance of the sta- 

 tionary mills, and the customary charges for grinding. When 

 the volume of the work done v/ill justify it, the aim should 

 be to grind the feed at home. The power to be used in each 

 instance is a question of no little importance. This, too, 

 should be largely determined by the amount of the grinding 



