138 DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



fcained that parsnips, carrots, turnips, and cabbage, whicb :x:ntain 

 from 80 to 90 per cent, of water, require over twice as much time to 

 digest as when the food is free from water. Cabbage, for example, 

 requires twenty hours, and broiled beef-steak only eight, to digest. 

 Turn a cow into a luxuriant pasture of grass or clover, and, after 

 partaking of one or the other, she is liable to become "blown" or 

 'hovon" — tympanitic; the abdomen becomes enormously dis- 

 tended with gas, (either carbonic acid gas, or sulphurtied hydro 

 gen,) and, unless the same be condensed or evacuated, ruptare and 

 death are sure to follow. This imperfect digestion and consequent 

 generation of gas is due to the presence of vegetable fluids found in 

 green fodder. Therefore, animals having weak digestive organs, 

 predisposed to flatulency, should have the privilege of watering 

 their own food with salivial fluid. The best diet for such an ani- 

 mal would be "dry feed," composed of ground oats, cracked corn, 

 "fine feed," and a small quantity of sweet hay. On the other 

 nand, a constipated state of the bowels always indicates coarsj 

 food; and in this view the English use chopped straw and coarsa 

 bran, with decided advantage. Animals should never be watere<l 

 immediately before nor after meals, after the lapse of an hour 

 from feedins: time is the best. 



As REGARDS THE QUANTirV OF FoOD REQUIRED. 



The adult horse does not require so much of the flesh-making 

 principle as the young and growing animal, but he seems to require 

 f greater variety. The adult merely requires enough to rej^lace 

 Ihe waste — the wear and tear of his system. If he obtains mora 

 than this, the surplus is either excreted from the body, or els(; 

 stored up within the same in the form of fat; and every body 

 knows that a fat horse or fat man are not best adapted for a race 

 nor hard labor, but of all others, (except those in a state of de- 

 bility,) they are most subject to acute disease. With the young 

 and growing animal the case is different. Here we rcfiuire bone, 

 muscle, and nervf. Oats, corn, and pollard furnish the same. 

 The colt obtains from its mother's milk all the elements of its own 

 organization in a concentrated form — all that seems necessary for 

 develoj)ing bodily proportions and hereditary traits; therefore, 

 when weaned, the colt must be furnished with the same equivalents 

 in the form of fodder : ground oats, wheat bran, and meal furnish 



