134 THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS 



In nine American experiments the digestive efficiency 

 of large and small ruminants has been studied, steers 

 being compared with sheep and cows with goats. In 

 five cases, the large animal digested from 5 to 14 per cent 

 the more, in three cases the excess for the small animal 

 varied between 7 and 17 per cent, and in one case there 

 was little difference. The general effect of such conflict- 

 ing results is to confirm the older and more numerous 

 observations. 



196. Lower digestibility with horses for coarse 

 foods. — ^The horse and ruminants differ in digestive 

 capacity to a marked extent. The comparisons which 

 have been made show a imiformly lower digestive effi- 

 ciency for coarse fodders on the part of the former. It 

 appears that because of less perfect mastication, or for 

 some other reason, the horse dissolves much less of the 

 crude fiber than the steer or sheep, and the effect of this 

 is prominent with hays and other fibrous materials. 

 With the grains, ruminant and equine digestion is not 

 greatly unlike, eight samples of oats with sheep and 

 twenty-four with the horse showing almost identical 

 digestion of the dry matter. With maize the case is the 

 same. In experiments with beans, the advantage was 

 slightly with the ruminant. The difference between 

 bovine and equine digestion is certainly least with highly 

 digestil^le rations containing a minimum of fiber. So 

 far as we are able to judge, swine digest concentrated 

 food about as do ruminants. How this is in the case of 

 fodders we do not know fully, but it is shown that the 

 swine digest crude fiber quite freely. 



Past experiments have not revealed any influence of 

 breed upon digestive capacity. There is no reason for 

 supposing that Shorthorn cattle, Southdown sheep, and 



