52 HORSES: 



be too full for the performance of its functions 

 Hence, when digestion is in progress, the stomach 

 is usually no more than two-thirds full ; the contents 

 gradually passing onward into the intestines as more 

 food enters the stomach. In eating a full feed of 

 hay the stomach receives what would constitute two 

 or three times its fill, so that the part first eaten does 

 not remain very long — perhaps twenty to thirty min- 

 utes subjected to stomach digestion — after which it 

 passes along little by little, as it becomes fitted for 

 intestinal digestion, and finally, when fitted therefor, 

 it is gradually absorbed into the circulation, becom- 

 ing blood. The albuminous portions of the food are 

 mainly digested in the stomach, and grain contains 

 four to six times as much of the albuminoids as a 

 like bulk of hay in the stomach, i.e., hay that has 

 been thoroughly masticated and swallowed contains 

 one-sixth to one-fourth as much of the albuminoids 

 as the grain, bulk for bulk. Consequently grain re- 

 quires a longer time in the stomach for sufficient gas- 

 tric juice to be secreted and to exert its full dissolv- 

 ing effects. If, then, the grain be first eaten and 

 soon thereafter the hay, we may be certain that the 

 grain will be forced from the stomach before it is 

 perfectly digested; but if we feed the hay first, it is 

 not difficult to understand that the grain will remain 

 in the stomach a sufficient time. 



A correspondent in the Dublin Farmer says with 

 relation to mixing food for horses, " We should not 

 put a great amount of coarse food with the grain, or 

 we will give them more than the stomach will hold, 



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