328 DOMESTIC ANIMALS, DAIRYING, ETC. 



falfa as a roughage always seem to have a taste for coarse roughage 

 of various kinds. Other kinds of roughage have been fed in connec- 

 tion with alfalfa but the results seem to indicate that the advantage 

 lies with the feeding of alfalfa as the sole roughage in comparison 

 with the feeding of other kinds in connection with it. (Kan. B. 

 130.) 



MIXING GRAIN AND ROUGHAGE TOGETHER. 



The first thing that a practical feeder notices when he goes into 

 a feed-lot where steers are fed grain and roughage mixed is the ab- 

 sence of scouring. The stockman who is feeding his fattening steers 

 grain and roughage thoroughly mixed finds that, with ordinary care 

 in feeding, his steers not only do not have the scours, but that an 

 animal is seldom off feed. Why? 



Average corn contains seventy-two per cent of starch. Starch in 

 feed is not absorbed into the system and used in building up the 

 body and sustaining life until it is changed to sugar. When changed 

 to sugar it is readily absorbed and used in the body. The saliva of 

 the mouth has the power to make this change while the juices of the 

 stomach do not. It follows, then, that the method of preparing the 

 feed that will induce the steer to chew it the most thoroughly and for 

 the longest time will secure the greatest amount of saliva mixed with 

 the feed and the greatest amount of starch changed to a form that 

 will build up the steer's body. 



When grain and roughage are mixed together the steer eats 

 slowly, giving much time for the food to become saturated with the 

 saliva and for the saliva to act on the starch. When the food is 

 swallowed it goes from the mouth to the paunch. When the food 

 reaches the paunch the finer portions, such as grain fed alone, are 

 forced directly into the third stomach and onward. The coarse food 

 and the grain mixed with it, when the grain is thoroughly mixed 

 with the roughage, is held for quite a while in the paunch, where the 

 saliva and the water which the steer drinks makes it very soft and 

 moist and the saliva continues to change the starch to sugar. After 

 the coarse feed has remained in the paunch until it is thoroughly 

 softened it is brought back to the mouth and rechewed as the cud ; 

 this allows more saliva to be mixed with it, which in turn changes 

 more starch into sugar, and the rechewing reduces the food to a 

 greater fineness. The second time the food is swallowed it passes to 

 the paunch and the fine particles go to the third and fourth stomachs, 

 where the action of the saliva ceases. 



When the grain is fed separately from the roughage, the animal 

 chews it but little, swallows it quickly, it stays but a short time in the 

 paunch, and but a small portion or none is brought up with the cud 

 and remasticated. This allows for slight action only of the saliva. 

 The starch which forms seventy-two per cent of corn is not acted on 

 by the gastric juice of the stomach, and the large proportion, which 

 has not been changed by the saliva, passes to the intestines undi- 

 gested. Some of the juices of the intestines change the starch to 

 sugar, but what remains unchanged irritates the intestines, producing 

 looseness and scouring. 



