28 THE FAMILY HORSEl. 



full development. If sown broadcast, the fodder is poor, watery 

 and nearly worthless. Corn fodder contains an excess of carbo- 

 hydrates for a well-balanced food, and when fed either green or 

 dry, should be mixed with clover, bran or other nitrogenous food 

 material. It is eaten with a better relish if cut up, crushed, 

 moistened, and mixed with bran, oil-meal or cotton-seed meal. 



Straw of any grain is like corn stalks, too rich in carbonaceous 

 elements to make a perfect food. It lacks flesh-forming materials, 

 and it is of little value alone as food for working horses. Oats are 

 often fed in the bundle unthreshed, and are readily eaten by horses. 

 This practice saves the expense of threshing, and renders the straw 

 available as food. For horses doing little or no work in winter^ such 

 food will do well as a part of the daily ration. But the unthreshed 

 bundle should be run through the feed cutter and cut fine. If it is 

 then dampened and a few quarts of bran, or a pound of linseed or 

 cotton-seed meal mixed with it, the ratio will be better adapted to 

 the horse than if fed alone. The greatest drawback to the practice 

 of keeping the oats unthreshed in the barn until fit to feed, is that 

 they attract rats and mice. 



Oats are pre-eminently the grain for horses, if only one kind 

 of grain is fed. They not only contain a large per cent of nutrients in 

 almost the correct ratio for the horse's requirements, but also a pecu- 

 liar alkaloid, which is gently stimulating. The fibrous husk in which 

 the grain is enclosed serves a valuable purpose in dividing the mass 

 in the horse's stomach, and exposing it to the action of the digestive 

 fluids. Oats should be at least three months old before they are fed. 

 When new they are difficult to digest, and liable to give a horse the 

 colic. They should be plump and of full weight. The husk on light 

 inferior oats is as heavy as on those which are sound and heavy, the 

 deficiency in weight coming wholly out of the grain. Thirty-two 

 pounds constitute a legal bushel, but good samples weigh more, run- 

 ning as high as forty-four pounds to the measured bushel. Six quarts 

 of the latter weigh nearly as much as a peck of the former, and con- 

 tain far more nutriment. This fact should be taken into considera- 

 tion in buying and feeding. If fed whole, even to young horses with 

 good teeth, oats are more or less imperfectly masticated and a part 

 passes through undigested. Many judicious feeders have them 

 crushed, to secure more complete mastication. 



Indian Corn is the great food grain of America, and of the 

 i:um3ns3 annual crops, aggregating in some years nearly two bil- 

 lion bushels, the greater part is fed to domestic animals. Com is 



