FOOD KEQTJIRED BY THE HEEBIVOEA. 685 



1:4, or even 1:3, and its use then entails a waste of valuable protei'ds 

 unless combined with chopped straw so as to bring the proportion down 

 to 1:5. In the cereals the proportion on an average is 1:5-7, being 

 broader in barley and corn than in oats, rye, and wheat; in the hulled 

 fruits, malt, brewers' grains, and distillery residues the proportion is 1:3, 

 and in rape-seed cake 1 : 1-2. These latter fodders are, therefore, only 

 applicable under special conditions. After this recapitulation we may 

 consider the principles of feeding somewhat more in detail. 



Animals which have no work to do besides growing and keeping up 

 their nutrition are nourished perfectly well bj r grazing if the grass 

 is abundant and of proper composition ; this is the case for sheep, two- 

 to three-year-old horses, and young cattle. If these animals are stall- 

 fed, instead of being put to grass, on account of the perfect quiet and 

 even temperature, the nutritive demands are reduced ; so now feeding 

 with hay or straw with some nitrogenous food suffices. A similar state 

 of affairs holds in animals which are stall-fed without being worked, such 

 as oxen in winter months, and the amount of food may here, also, be con- 

 siderably reduced. The data showing the amount of food required are 

 about as follows : — 



For unworked animals, for every one hundred kilos body weight, 

 2.5 kilos of solids in the grasses (green fodder) is sufficient; therefore, 

 for the herbivora, for every one hundred kilos body weight, ten kilos of 

 grass, containing 2.5 kilos of solids, and of this 1.3 kilos of digestible 

 matters, is sufficient. In this amount 0.25 kilo is represented by albu- 

 men, non-nitrogenous extractive one kilo, and fat 0.05 kilo ; so the ratio 

 of the amount of food to the amount of digestible matter is 1 : 4.2. 



Thus, a horse ''weighing five hundred kilos may preserve a nutritive 

 equilibrium on a daily ration of seven hundred grammes albumen, two 

 hundred and ten grammes fat, three thousand seven hundred and fifty 

 grammes starch and cellulose, and about twenty kilos of water ; the ratio 

 of nitrogenous to non-nitrogenous food being thus 1:5.5. Starch and 

 fat may replace each other, seventeen parts of starch being equivalent to 

 ten parts of fat. In the horse, the carbohydrates are more important 

 heat-producing foods than is the case in man. Wolff has found that of 

 the heat produced, Y6 per cent, is due to carbohydrates, 13.5 per cent, 

 to proteids, and 10.1 per cent, to fats. 



In a general way it may be said that for each kilo of body weight 

 the herbivora requires daily one hundred and fifty grammes albumen, 

 fifty grammes fat, and seven hundred and fifty grammes carbohydrates. 

 Smaller animals require proportionately larger amounts, since the de- 

 structive processes are more active in them. In fattening animals the 

 carbohydrates must be increased ; in milking animals the albuminous 

 food-constituents. 



