Feeding Stuffs. 139 



suffers from gorging. In this regard they resemble bran and are 

 in strong contrast with corn. Whole oats are best for mature 

 horses with good teeth and ample time for eating and digesting 

 their food, but for hard-worked horses and foals the grain should 

 be crushed or ground. Grandeau^ states that the Paris Cab Com- 

 pany have used crushed oats in feeding its thousands of hard- 

 worked horses getting but a limited amount of hay, with a decided 

 saving. 



The mettle or spirited action so characteristic of the oat-fed 

 horse is never quite attained thru the use of any other feed. It 

 has long been held that there is a stimulating principle in the oat 

 grain, and tho all claims of the discovery of this principle have 

 melted away on careful examination,- there yet remains the feel- 

 ing that there is a basis for the claim, (409) 



169. Oats for other animals. — For dairy cows there is no better 

 grain than oats, but their use is restricted by their high price. 

 Danish dairymen sow oats together with barley, and feed the two 

 grains in combination. (626) Oats fed to beef calves at the South 

 Dakota Station^ returned but 26 cents per bushel. At both the 

 Montana* and South Dakota^ Stations oats proved inferior to corn, 

 barley, or wheat for fattening lambs, doubtless because this grain 

 tends to growth rather than fattening. (747) Ground oats with 

 the hulls sifted out provide a most nourishing and wholesome feed 

 for young calves and pigs. (855) For breeding sAvine, whole oats 

 in limited quantity are always in place. 



170. By-products. — At the grain elevators and oatmeal factories 

 the light-weight oat kernels are screened out from the better grade 

 and go out as feed for stock. The value of such grain depends on 

 the proportion of kernel to hull. Light-weight oats of low feeding 

 value are often mixed with corn and the ground product sold as 

 ground corn and oats. Vast quantities of hulls are turned out by 

 the oatmeal factories, and so completely are the kernels separated 

 from the hulls that the chafflike material which remains has but a 

 low feeding value. Oat hulls contain about 30 per ct. fiber, as 

 Table I of the Appendix shows, and their feeding value can be but 

 little, if any, above that of oat straw. If fragments of the kernels 

 adhere, their value is of course thereby improved. Oat hulls are 



' Expt. Sta. Kec, XVII, p. 898. 



^ Agriculture in Some of its Relations with Chemistry, Vol. 2 ; Landw. Vera, 

 Sta., 36, p. 299; Ept. Me. Expt. Sta., 1891, p. 58, corr.; Centbl. Chem., 1884, 

 p. 20. 



' Bui. 97. " Bui. 47. ' Bui. 86. 



