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172 SCIENTIFIC FEEDING OF ANIMALS 



3. Rape, flax, buckwheat and similar plants give 

 a straw that in outward properties resembles 

 coarse leguminous straw, and which is used in the 

 same way. Buckwheat straw can cause the buck- 

 wheat sickness (p. 166). 



4. Chaff is principally the straw-like husks of the 

 seeds, which often contain a lot of silica along with 

 broken leaves, twigs, imperfect grains, etc. It is 

 usually richer in nutrients than the straw of the 

 same plant, but may contain a lot of rubbish, such as 

 sand, earth, dust, weed seeds, spores of fungi, etc., 

 all of which should be removed as far as possible 

 before feeding. Amongst the varieties of cereal 

 chaff that of oats and non-awned barley is the most 

 valuable, then comes wheat chaff, whilst that of 

 rye is only slightly digestible. Rice and millet 

 chaff are the least valuable and contain a lot of 

 woody fibre, and silica. Chaff from awned cereals is 

 best not fed at all, for the sharp awns bore into the 

 mucous membrane of the digestive apparatus, and 

 may give rise to inflammation. Sometimes, too, a 

 fungus (Actinomyces bovis), which is found on cereal 

 straw, causes the formation of abscesses in the throat 

 and stomach. Scalding and steaming, which kill 

 the fungus, prevent this, for if the awns enter the 

 mucous membrane they do not then introduce the 

 living fungus, which is the cause of the disease. 



The chaff of leguminous seeds — peas, vetches, 

 beans, lupines — is about equal in feeding value to 



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