SECTION XXIII. 



HOW TO BALANCE A RATION AND TERMS OF A NUTRITIVE 



RATIO.' 



Trial Ration. — Referring to Table i (Composition and Digesti- 

 ble Nutrients) and Table II (Feeding Standards) and knowing 

 the meaning of the terms as set forth in the preceding pages, 

 it will now be a simple matter of arithmetic and judgment 

 to compute or balance any ration. 



Let us suppose, for example, that we have a horse or a mule 

 at home ploughing. Ploughing all day is hard or heavy work. 

 Now if we turn to Table II we find that the standard for a 

 horse weighing 1,000 lbs. heavily worked is as follows: 



This means that if our horse at home doing heavy work, 

 weighs 1,000 lbs., the requirement will be 23 lbs. of dry matter, 

 2.3 lbs. of digestible protein, and 14.3 lbs. of digestible carbo- 

 hydrates to satisfy its needs for a day of 24 hours. 



Let us suppose we have the following feed stuffs at home: 

 Cotton-seed meal, corn (shelled), wheat bran and timothy hay. 

 To figure our ration let us try 2 lbs. of cotton-seed meal, 6 lbs. of 

 shelled corn, 6 lbs. of wheat bran and 10 lbs. of timothy hay. 

 We must now find the total dry matter, digestible protein, diges- 

 tible carbohydrates and fat, in each of the above feeds that make 

 up our ration. Referring to Table i we find that 100 lbs. of 

 cotton-seed meal contain 91.8 lbs. of dry matter, 37.2 lbs. of 

 digestible protein, 16.9 lbs. of digestible carbohydrates and 12.2 

 lbs. of digestible fat. Then as 2 lbs. of cotton-seed m'eal are 

 included in our trial ration we get the amounts of digestible 

 nutrients as stated. 



1 Adapted from Halligan's Fundamentals of Agriculture. 



