30 



MODERN HORSE MANAGEMENT 



[chap. 



intestines the greater will be the chance of the 

 poisonous portions being absorbed into the 

 system. Meat is a valuable food in that it is the 

 most concentrated and most easily assimilable of 

 nitrogenous foods. Horses are not generally fed 

 on meat, although they have been in the past, as 

 during the siege of Metz, when it was rolled 

 with bran. I remember a horse in the British 

 cavalry that would eat hot meat and vegetables 

 without any hesitation. 



109. Oats. — Oats have been found to be the 

 most suitable for working horses ; they contain 

 a higher percentage of woody fibre and not too 

 much starch and sugar. The wholesomeness of 

 a horse food consists chiefly in its correct per- 

 centage of wood fibre and nitrogenous material. 

 Woody fibre, although indigestible in itself, aids 

 in the digestion of the nutritive parts of the food. 

 By not containing too much nitrogen it has a less 

 poisonous effect than highly nitrogenous food. 

 The greatest amount of nourishment can be ob- 

 tained by horses from oats with the least chance 

 of upsetting the digestive system. 



The Characteristics of Oats. — As oats are so 

 commonly used and as it is so important that 

 horse owners should know good from bad oats, 

 it is advisable to give in detail their character- 

 istics. Good oats are plump, short, round, hard, 

 dry, floury if bitten, without odour, with colour 

 either pale yellow, or almost white or black ; a 

 deep yellow indicates kiln-dried oats. Good oats 

 should smell slightly sweet and should rattle if 

 shaken in one's hand. The kernels should bulge 

 slightly through the husks. The fatter the kernel 

 is the heavier will be the weight of a bushel ; 

 good oats should be of uniform size. They are 

 beardless or nearly so ; beards decrease the 

 weight of oats. New oats are soft, and horses 

 deteriorate if fed on them. New oats are also 

 heavier because they contain more water, so they 

 may be sold by dishonest dealers as good old 

 oats. Oats of the previous year are the best. 



Oats vary in weight from 25 to 50 pounds per 

 bushel. An average weight is from 32 to 40 

 pounds. In weighing oats the measure should 

 be filled from a sack, and the surplus immedi- 

 ately " struck " from the top with a round stick ; 

 no shaking is to be allowed. The measure 

 should be placed on the scales before it is filled. 

 Good oats should be cleaned ; therefore they 

 should be shaken to determine if there is any 

 dust in them. White oats are more nutritious, 

 as they have less husk than black oats. English 

 oats are generally the best from the point of view 

 of nutriment. 



110. Defects in Oats.— The worst oats are 

 longer, thinner, more irregular in shape, heavily 

 bearded, darker in colour, stronger in odour. If 

 squeezed in the hand they will feel soft and 

 spongy, chiefly due to the beards. Oats that 

 have become damp (through the leaky hold of a 

 ship) become heated and sometimes commence 



to steam. They will have a darker colour and a 

 peculiar acrid smell ; these are called foxy oats. 

 In order to hide this they are sometimes kiln- 

 dried, which gets rid of the foxy odour, restores 

 hardness, but turns the colour still darker 

 (almost brown). To get rid of this dark colour 

 they are sometimes bleached with sulphur ; in 

 which case the sulphur can be tasted if the oats 

 are crushed in the mouth. Kiln-drying good oats 

 that have only become a little damp does no 

 harm and saves them. 



Inferior oats with long beards are sometimes 

 "clipped" by passing them through a machine. 

 Mustiness and mouldiness, due to damp harvest 

 or damp stowage, is generally detected by a 

 musty smell ; if mouldy, the mould will probably 

 be detectable upon close examination. Oats that 

 have commenced to sprout are of no value for 

 feeding purposes. Rats may taint oats to such 

 an extent that horses will not eat them. If a 

 horse will not eat his oats, great care must be 

 taken that some good oats are given to it before 

 it is treated for sickness, as it may not be sick. 



111. Feeding Oats. — The daily ration of oats 

 for a horse about fifteen and a half hands high 

 is about ten pounds, which should be increased 

 to twelve or fifteen with hard work. The cavalry 

 allowance is insufficient if horses are doing very 

 hard work. Horses at rest require only from 

 four to six pounds a day, if at rest for any length 

 of time perhaps as little as two pounds a day. 

 These last should, of course, be fed on bran 

 mashes, with a small amount of oats added. 

 Unless crushed, oats should never be fed alone to 

 a horse, but should be given mixed with cut-up 

 hay (chaff) or bran. Chaff is cheap, as the 

 ordinary hay can be cut up daily by a chaff- 

 cutting machine, which can be purchased for 

 about three pounds (fifteen dollars). Its cost, 

 if treble this, would soon repay itself. Cutting 

 up hay is the best way to prevent the horse from 

 wasting it. Three or four gallon measures of 

 chaff with each feed of oats are not too much. 

 At any rate, one gallon should be added to every 

 gallon of oats. Chaff improves if kept in bulk 

 for some time, and is better if damped before it 

 is fed, because the dust affects the nostrils. 

 Heavy draught horses doing hard work are given 

 as much as forty pounds of oats a day. This 

 shows that oats can be fed in large quantities to 

 hard-working horses without any harm, at the 

 same time keeping them in hard condition. 



112. Crushed Oats. — With any horse crushed 

 oats are an advantage over uncrushed oats, but 

 with old horses, and those that feed hurriedly, 

 through greed or fear of their neighbour robbing 

 them, crushed oats are of the utmost value. 

 Normally a horse can grind up oats very well 

 with its molar teeth ; but, of course, if oats are 

 already crushed the juices will have greater 

 access to the kernels, and therefore digestion will 

 be more perfect. Oats should not be crushed 



