FEEDING HORSES AND MULES 285 
of stations have carefully investigated this subject, the most ex- 
tensive inquiry having been conducted at the Utah station. No 
ill results were noted in these experiments on the health of the 
horses by long-continued, exclusive feeding of alfalfa. Attacks of 
colic and other digestive disorders can be prevented by a judicious 
system of feeding, giving less than the horses will clean up (see 
above). During these experiments, which were conducted for a 
period of twelve years, alfalfa formed the sole roughage of all the 
working and driving horses at the station, except during brief 
periods when they received other experimental fodders, and not a 
horse was lost, either directly or indirectly, as a result of feeding 
alfalfa during this entire period. This is not surprising when we 
remember that alfalfa forms the only roughage, and often the only 
feed, throughout the year on thousands upon thousands of farms 
in the western States, especially in irrigated regions, as it is also 
the sole feed of dairy cows among many farmers in these regions. 
The Utah station found that 20 pounds of alfalfa hay were 
sufficient to maintain the weights of horses weighing nearly 1400 
pounds when at rest; when at heavy work, 32.6 pounds were barely 
sufficient to maintain the weights of the same horses. Results of 
trials at the Wyoming station’® showed that four farm horses re- 
quired to perform light work maintained their weights on a daily 
ration of 1344 pounds of alfalfa hay when they had access to a 
stack of oat straw. In a second test made with two horses it was 
found that the weights were maintained on an average daily ration 
of 13.75 pounds alfalfa hay and 2.25 pounds oat straw per 1000 
pounds live weight. A trial at the Wyoming station .with six 
horses"! fed during ten one-month periods on alfalfa hay showed 
a total gain of 203 pounds, while during an equal period on native 
hay there was a total loss of 84 pounds. The Kansas station con- 
cluded, from experiments conducted with work hozses, that alfalfa 
hay, when properly fed, is a much more valuable roughage than 
either timothy or prairie hay, and reduces the cost of the daily 
ration from 25 to 35 per cent when substituted for either hay and 
fed with corn and oats. 
It may, therefore, be considered established that alfalfa hay is 
a good feed for horses fed with other roughage or grain, and, if 
desired, it may also be fed as sole feed without any ill results. The 
main precautions to be observed are as follows: The hay must not 
» Bulletin 77. 
* Report 12. 
11 Bulletin 98; see also Nebraska Extension Bulletin 28. 
