Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1847-06-04
From the Gencsee Farmcr1
Nourishincnt and Fatteniny of Animals.

Permit us TO express a conviction, founded on
considerable research. that the annual loss from
the omission to supply animals with food best
prepared, and adapted, first to keep up their con-
slant temperature of 9S degrees secondly. to
repair the waste of every organ and tissue and
thirdly to be dissolved and digcsted, is equal in
value to one fourth of all the food consumed
When we feed COW raw potatoes and shorts
contai ming starch. and find one third as much
starch IN her dung as there was in her food what
is the inference Can we escape the conclu-
sion that this insoube compound, so useful to
make cream and evolve heat to warm the animal
has slipped through the digestive organs I'M
changed! One remedy is, to cook the food and
thus transform an insoluble starch into a soluble
gum
But there is another. and perhaps, all things
considered, a better remedy. 1t has been found
by careful experiments and analysis Tat the
ground seeds of plants like corn, oat, and barley
| meal, wet with cold water or fed dry to cows,
| steers, and other rumnant animals, without hay
or straw, passes like the chewed cud directly
into the last stomach, and thus loses the whole
benefit of the second mastication. Hence fol-
lows the important result that this food, so truly
valuable in ITSELF is only half digested Feed
your cattle on whole ears of corn, and your
store pigs will find whole kernels Of this grain in
their dung. Nor will grinding alone answer the
best purpose. The meal should be intimately
mixed with cut hay, straw, or corn stalks, that
it may pass into the ventriculum or first stomach
60 back into the mouth, be thoroughly incorpo-
rated with the saliva, and masticated as a cud in
the second chewing. 1t is difficult to extract all
the nutritive elements from corn meal without
cooking. The small sand like particles of the
grain are extremely hard, and SO abound in oil
as to resist the solvent powers of the gastric
juices of herbivorous animals.
The loss by defective digestion is only one
item, and perhaps the smallest, that occurs in
feeding domestic animals. Let us suppose that
a COW or horse needs the daily addition of ten
pounds of new blood drawn from dgested food,
to maintain constant heat of 90 degrees in a
mass of flesh that will weigh 900 pounds, and
repair the waste in the same. 1t may not be far
from the truth to say that eight pounds of the
matter furnished by the ten pounds of blood must
be burnt to keep the body warm. The carbon
and hydrogen daily expelled from the lungs of a
cow or horse in the form of csrbonic acid gas
and vapor are more than equal to all the carbon
and hydrogen contained in eight pounds of dry
starch, sugar, or oil. The other two pounds
must furnish each muscle with new ibrn, and
the brain, nerves, bones, liver lungs, and all
other organs with new elements of precisely the
right character and condition to suit the peculiar
wants of each living tissue. 1t is not merely
theory but fact that both the food and blood, Of
animal often contain either an excess of combus
tible elements for warming the system, or de-
hceicy of the same. In either case loss is inc
vltable but it is greater in case there is too
little, rather than too much fuel. Nature has
provided adpose tissues for storing up fat o.
fuel when there is an excess in the blood. to BIZ
used in time of need But no such provision i.
made for laying up surplus of the ingredient.
that make muscular fibre, nerves, brain, ant
bone. Hence, any excess there may be, in the
food of any ANIMAL must escape from the system
either by the bowels, or as urea or other com
pound in the excretions by the kidneys, by insen
sbe persplratlon, or as gas and vapor through
the lungs. 1t has been found that to increase
the oil, starch, or saccharine matter in the food
OF COW giving milk, with view to auomcn,
the yield of butter, while the supply of tissue for
ming or brain-torming elements was neglected
results in a loss instead ola rain in butter. Tt
taiten an animal, it must have not only an excess
beyond daily consumption Of the elements thai
make fat, but enjoya fair supply of all the Other
ingredients required to form its lean meat
bones, &c.
1t is practicable by good and skilful keep t.
augment the daily secretion of milk, and it,
richness in butter and cheese. To attain Thu
result, the comfort and heath of cows must b,
studied and lie at the foundation of the improve
ment. Their food in winter should be cooked
so far as roots, tubers, and grain are used il
feeding them. They should be well bedded
I watered, and sated as well as fed with a variet
: OF suitable nourishment. The importance q
variety in the food of herbiverous animals is to-
much overlooked by most agriculturists. Re
member this unvarying law; Every part of tn
system must be supplied with its appropriat
: elements in an available form aud every exces
OF any element beyond the requirements
' nature Is so much loss to the owner of the stock
u we must resume the Investigation OF this into