138 * THE TAn^t. 



horse can eat but about five pounds of bay iu an hour, Ts-bicb is charged, 

 during mastication, witli four times its weight of saUva. Now, the stomach, 

 to digest well, will contain biit about ten qitarts, and when the animal eats 

 one-third of his daily ration, or seven pounds, in one and one-half hours, he 

 has swallowed at least two stouiacMuls of hay and saliva, one of these hav- 

 ing passed to the intestines. Observation has shown that the food is passed 

 to the intestines by the stomach in the order in which it is received. If we 

 feed a horse six quarts of oats it will just fill his stomach, and if, as soon as 

 he finishes this, we feed him the above ration of seven pounds of hay, he will 

 cat siifScient in three-quarters of an hour to have forced the oats entirely out 

 of his stomach into the intestines. As it is the office of the stomach to digest 

 the nitrogenous parts of the feed, and as a stomachful of oats contains four 

 or five times as much of these as the same amount of hay, it is certain that 

 either the stomach must secrete the gastric juice five times as fast, which is 

 hardly possible, or it must retain this food five times as long. By feeding 

 the oats first, it can only be retained long enough for the proper digestion of 

 hay, conseqTiently it seems logical, when feeding a concentrated food like 

 oats, with a bulky one like hay, to feed the latter first, giving the grain the 

 whole time between the repasts to be digested. 



Feeding Horses.-^ Another authority writes as follows: The horse has 

 the smallest stomach, in proportion to his size, of any animal. This space is 

 completely filled by four quarts of oats and the saliva that goes into the 

 stomach with it. Horses are generally overfed and not fed often enough. 

 For a horse with moderate work six or eight quarts of bruised oats and ten 

 pounds of fine hay are sufficient. This should be fed in three meals, and is 

 better if fed in four. A horse's digestion is very rapid, and therefore he gets 

 hungry sooner than a man. When he is hungry he is inefiective, and wears 

 out very rapidly. Water fills the stomach, lowers the temperature, and di- 

 lutes the gastric juice; therefore a hoi-se should not drink immediately be- 

 fore eating. Neither should he be watered immediately after eating, because 

 he will di-ink too much and force some of the contents of the stomach into 

 the large intestine, which will cause scouring. Scouring is also caused by 

 too rapid eating, which can be prevented by piitting half a dozen pebbles 

 half the size of the fist into the manger with the oats. Give only a moderate 

 drink of wateT to a horse. A large drink of water before being driven will 

 have a veiy quieting effect on a nervous horse. A race horse always runs 

 on an empty stomach. Digestion progresses moderately during exercise, if 

 the exercise is not so violent as to exhaust the power of the horse. I con- 

 sider bruised oats worth twenty per cent, more than whole. They are more 

 perfectly digested. I prefer oats to any other grain for horses. Cracked 

 com is good under some circumstances, but I would not use meal or shorts. 

 The disease called big head is caused by feeding com. When a horse comes 

 in hot I would give a moderate feed immediately. If the horse is too tired 

 to eat I would take the feed away. A heated horse is a reason against water- 

 ing and for feeding, for the system is just then in a condition to begin diges- 

 tion. A horse will not founder if fed immediately when hot. I prefer dry 

 feed, unless the horse has some disease of the throat and lungs. I do not 

 consider it wortli while to cut hay. I always feed hay from the floor, tlien 

 the horses do not get particles in their eyes. 



Raising a Colt. — A colt is regarded as an incumbrance because ho is 

 useless until he arrives at a suitable age for work, but it really costs very 



