PREVENTION OF WASTAGE. 53 



not ! Economy is twofold. The first relating to Supply Services 

 in substitution diets, and the power to issue equivalents, 

 whenever circumstaces demand, as already alluded to ; the 

 second relating more directly to the animal itself. The latter 

 is where the Commanding Officer, the chief instrument of horse- 

 mastership and animal management in the prevention of 

 wastage, comes in. What avails supply if the ration does not 

 reach, the animal's stomach ? Therefore it is that the commonest 

 rules and routine procedure of stable management must be 

 observed. No excuse whatever can or should be accepted for 

 the want of provision of nose-bags, hay nets, and feeding cloths 

 — the plates, as it were, of creatures who cannot make expedients 

 for themselves. Wind has a habit of blowing hay out of the 

 reach of animals tied to a picket line ; grain placed on the ground 

 in wet weather is trodden into the mud and wasted. There is 

 shocking waste of bhoosa in India. Consider the transport 

 necessary to get this article to animals on service. It is an 

 innutritious diet at its best, and I think the time has come 

 when by a combination of" some other more nutritious 

 "roughage" (e.g'. berseem, shaftal, lucerne, or other leguminous 

 fodder) with bhoosa in bale, a more suitable service ration 

 should be devised. I am certain it would be favourable to 

 animals, and represent economy in transport. 



Time to eat is an element that has to be reckoned with on 

 service. This, or rather the lack of it, was one of the reasons 

 why our beautiful big heavy draught English horses, requiring 

 a bulky forage ration, went to pieces in France — as I will show 

 in subsequent pages. Military animals are not like dogs, that 

 can bolt their food with impunity. It takes horses five minutes 

 at least to eat a pound of grain and fifteen minutes to eat a 

 pound of hay. Bullocks and camels must have time to rumin- 

 ate : it is part of their alimentary and digestive procedure, and 

 as a rule they sit down to it. 



Eorage rations can at times be supplemented by grazing, and 

 advantage should always be taken where it is possible or when 

 time or season permits. A certain amount of grazing was 

 obtainable in the devastated areas in France. Chaf&ng of hay 

 and straw was resorted to as an economical procedure. The 

 forage rations of French Army horses included straw, that 



