ALIMENTATION. l8l 



The food of the horse, being herbivorous, consists of the fol- 

 lowing: 



(a) Cereals, as wheat, barley, corn, rice, and oats. They con- 

 tain over eighty per cent, of solids, which consist of albumin, 

 small amounts of fat, carbohydrates, and non-nitrogenous extract- 

 ives. Corn and rye are rich in starch, but poor in albumin. 

 Oats are very rich in starch, about fifty per cent., and also con- 

 tain nine per cent, of albumin and six per cent, of fat. Oats also 

 contain ferments, which digest starch and proteids as well as 

 forming lactic acid; assisting the stomach very materially in 

 digestion. 



(b) Bulbs and roots, as potatoes, containing large amounts of 

 water and starch; fodder and sugar beets; cabbages, containing 

 a large amount of starch, sugar and cellulose in small amounts. 



(c) Leguminous plants, as peas and beans. 



(d) Grasses, as prairie-hay, rye-straw, grass, clover, etc. Green 

 grass contains seventy-five per cent, water, clover sixty per cent. 



(e) Inorganic matter as water, common salt, lime and potassium 

 salts, and iron. 



Sodium chloride, or common salt, is essential, and regulates 

 endosmosis and exosmosis. Other salts are deposited in bone. 

 The iron forms the coloring matter of the blood. 



The Amount of Food Required. 



The horse needs daily 7500 grammes of hay and 2270 of oats, 

 or 10 kilos (22 Ibs.) of hay, and 2 kilos (4.4 Ibs.) of oats to every 

 100 kilo (220 Ibs.) of body weight. Colin says that the horse 

 will eat 26 kinds of plants, and reject 212 (Meade-Smith). 



It should receive daily about two per cent, of its body weight 

 in solid food, and should be in the proportion of i to 4 of nitrog- 

 enous and non-nitrogenous material. The different steps of 

 digestion are prehension, mastication, salivary^ digestion, degluti- 

 tion, gastric and intestinal digestion, absorption and defecation, 

 or expulsion from the body of the residue not required for ali- 

 mentation. 



PREHENSION. 



Prehension is the process of transferring the food to the mouth, 

 and is the first or primary act of digestion. 



The upper lip carries the food to the teeth, the long neck and 



