458 FEEDING FARM ANIMALS 



The wisdom of trying to utilize roughage to the great- 

 est extent practicable will be apparent from what has been 

 said. It is simply impossible to lay down rules that will 

 apply in every case as to the proportion of roughage and 

 concentrates that shall be fed respectively. Much must be 

 left to the judgment of the intelligent feeder, but some 

 things may be said that should prove helpful to the less 

 experienced. These include the following: (i) Young- 

 animals including foals, calves, lambs and pigs should be 

 provided with all the roughage that they will consume from 

 the time when they begin to feed upon it to insure the 

 requisite distension in the digestive organs; (2) to encour- 

 age them to take such food, it should be provided for them 

 superior in quality and possessed of high palatability ; (3) 

 with animals grown for future breeding or labor the rela- 

 tive proportion of roughage to concentrates should increase 

 until they are matured; (4) the proportion of concentrates 

 to roughage in feeding mature horses may extend from 

 none at all with idle horses to considerably more than 50 

 per cent in digestible nutrients with horses at hard labor; 

 (5) the proportion with mature cattle that are being fat- 

 tened or with those nearing maturity may run all the way 

 between 33 and 66 per cent according to the character of the 

 nutrients in the roughage and the duration of the feeding 

 period; (6) the proportion with cows in milk may range 

 between 33 and 50 per cent of all the nutrients, according 

 to the nature of the roughage fed, but when on pasture 

 it may be less than 33 per .cent even to the extent of not 

 feeding any; (7) the proportion with sheep that are being 

 fattened should range between 33 and 66 per cent of all 

 the nutrients, also based on their character and the duration 

 of the feeding period; (8) the proportion with swine be- 

 tween weaning and fattening should be in the neighbor- 

 hood of 50 to 65 per cent of all the nutrients, and for all 

 other swine, save breeding animals when not producing, it 

 should run from 75 to 100 per cent; (9) roughage fed in 



