FEED AND CARE OF THE HORSE 



F. C. MiNKLER, New Brunswick, N. J. 



Associate Professor of Animal Husbandry, New Jersey Agricultural 

 Experiment Station 



The feeding of work horses involves 

 not so mnch a scientific knowledge of nu- 

 trition as it does the art of applying com- 

 mon sense methods and observations. 

 Given two men with two teams of work- 

 ing horses and all the feed and rough- 

 age necessary for maintenance and de- 

 velopment : the one who is the mere team- 

 ster will generally utilize twice as much 

 feed, and bring his charges through at 

 the end of the season in a less desirable condition than the 

 practical horseman who loves his charges and watches and feeds 

 them in accordance with practical common sense methods. If 

 the old saying that " a bushel of care is worth two bushels of 

 feed " applies to any line of live stock management, it is applicable 

 to the feeding of farm work horses. Success in the feeding of 

 horses is not the automatic process of putting in so many pounds 

 of feed and supplementing this with so many pounds of roughage, 

 permitting the horse to be his own judge; but rather involves 

 the choosing of those feeds that are useful and economical, and at 

 the same time feeding and selecting such products with proper 

 regard to the indiyidual animal, the kind and extent of the 

 work required, the condition, temperament and adaptability of 

 the man who works and the horses that are worked. A, scien- 

 tifically balanced ration is not essential, for chemists are very apt 

 in certain rations to find food nutrients that the horse cannot find. 

 The spirit or '* feel " of the horse, the expression of his coimte- 

 nance, the condition of his coat and legs, together with the con- 

 sistency, color and odor of the feces, are perhaps of more im- 

 portance to the feeder in determining kinds and amounts of feeds 

 than the lead pencil in the hands of the scientist who feeds his 



horse from his ofiice desk. 



[187] 



