394 THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS 



tion of food expenditure to work performed, and the 

 necessity of feeding a laboring animal somewhat pro- 

 portionately to what he does. It should be borne in mmd 

 constantly that when the intensity of effort of the horse 

 increases, even if only the same work is performed in a 

 shorter time, the food needs for each unit of work are 

 greater. If "a driver in making the regular number of trips 

 to the railroad station needlessly hurries his horse, or if a 

 drayman whips his team into a fast walk and then lets it 

 stand idle, more food must be consumed than if the slowest 

 possible gait was allowed. 



486. Source of the ration for working horses. — In 

 treating of this matter we must, in the first place, con- 

 sider the digestive apparatus or storage capacity of the 

 horse. It is certainly not adapted to the consumption 

 of large quantities of coarse food, as is the case with 

 ruminants. If a horse at severe labor needs 17.7 pounds 

 of digestible dry matter each day, he could get it from hay 

 only by eating over 40 pounds — a most absurd require- 

 ment. It is especially necessary, therefore, with hard- 

 working animals, that the larger part of their nutriment 

 comes from the concentrated feeding-stuffs. Ten to 12 

 pounds of hay is all a draft horse should consume in one 

 day. Working horses on the farm generally eat too 

 much coarse fodder. 



The net values of feeding-stuffs are also important 

 in this connection. It has been shown that the net energy 

 value of a unit of dry matter from hay is less than with 

 that from the grains, and consequently when it is neces- 

 sary to supply an animal with a large amount of energy 

 for external mechanical uses, requiring high feeding, we 

 must resort to the grains in order to construct a ration 

 of maximum efficiency. 



