292 PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS 
be kept on the best in the land because of his beauty and style, but 
the mule is fed that he may labor.”?? 
It is commonly stated that mules make more economical use 
of the feed they eat than horses, and that their cost of keep is, 
therefore, smaller. Careful investigations have failed to show, 
however, that there is a sound basis for this claim. After a long 
experience with thousands of army mules, Riley maintains ** that a 
mule requires just as much feed as a horse of similar dimensions; 
in fact, at hard work, he says that the mule will eat more than a 
horse will or ever can. In general, an animal that eats little is a 
poor animal, regardless of its class or kind. The mule will manage 
to get along on poor feed given at irregular intervals, but this 
neglect is manifested by its condition and efficiency (Burkett). 
A number of stations have conducted experiments with the two 
classes of animals which furnish data for a study of this question. 
The following summary figures were obtained at the Missouri and 
Ohio stations, the animals being fed oats and hay in one series of 
experiments, and corn and hay in another series, and the hay being 
figured at $10 a ton, oats at 40 cents a bushel, and shelled corn 
50 cents a bushel. 
Average 
yearly cost 
Average daily work of feed 
Average for mules .................005- 4 hours 42 minutes $58.11 
Average for horses ..........0.e0e00- .» 4 hours 34144 minutes 58.01 
Summarizing all available data on this point, the Breeders’ Ga- 
zette > arrived at the average cost of feed for all the horses per 
1000 pounds as $75.66 per year, and for the mules, $76.76. “‘ These 
figures indicate that the mule has no constitutional advantage over 
the horse in cheapness of maintenance. In fact, the horse has a 
slight lead in the data presented, but the difference is so small as to 
be negligible. In actual practice it is probable that the mule is 
maintained a little more cheaply than the horse, because oats are fed 
to horses more commonly than to mules. The practice of feeding 
oats to work horses, however, is largely a whim of the feeder, since 
numerous tests have shown that corn may be entirely substituted 
with satisfactory results. The difference between the two is thus 
largely a matter of custom, so far as light is shed on the problem 
by the tests mentioned.” 
22 Kentucky Bulletin 176. 
72 Burkett, “ Feeding Farm Animals,” p. 170. 
* Sept. 10, 1914, p. 390. 
