396 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



quart of oats or finished wheat middlings. There should 

 be no forcing in the feeding aim to keep a keen appetite 

 for food, which assures a better digestion. 



If easily obtained this milk should be continued three 

 or more months after weaning ; and after this, one quart 

 of oats and one to two quarts of wheat middlings should 

 be continued till grass affords a good living. 



For all constipation, rely upon small quantity of boiled 

 flax-seed instead of oil, for that is dangerous from possible 

 adulteration. 



In rearing this colt, designed for fast work, a parsi- 

 monious policy should have no place. Scanty feeding 

 must, in the nature of the case, defeat the purpose in view. 

 Complete development cannot result except from generous 

 feeding. The feeder may indeed choose among various 

 combinations of food. Some may cost less than others, 

 and yet be equally good for the purpose. But he must 

 not lose sight of the fact that there must always be a 

 proper combination of concentrated and bulky food. 

 Horses are, perhaps, fonder of oats than any other grain, 

 yet when fed too freely upon oats they will eat, with great 

 relish, even the bedding in their stalls. However good a 

 single food may be, an animal must not be confined to it. 

 A combination of foods, given together in the same ration, 

 will be relished much longer, and, for working horses, 

 such combined ration will be satisfactory for many months 

 together, but for the horse, devoted to fast work, his taste 

 must be studied and humored by a frequent change of food, 

 each selected, however, for its quality of nourishing the 

 muscles. 



The English farmer raises the horse-bean as a specialty 

 for horses, but that species does not succeed in this country. 

 Our grains, which maybe considered especially appropriate 

 in larger or smaller quantity for the healthy develop- 

 ment of horse muscle, are : Oats, barley, rye, millet, peas, 



