Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-02-17
CARE AND FEED OF HORSES.
The Springfield Repablican publishes the

The Springfield Repablican publishes the
following:
HOW AND WHAT TO FEED THEM.
The winter management of farm animals
is one of the great agricultural questions Of
the age. Always a matter of vital import
ance, it becomes doubly so in juncture Of
scarcity and high prices. When hay sells
at $40 s ton, he is a skiIlful farmer who
can make both ends meet. Beeves will pay,
but all stock are not beeves. There must be
horses and store cattle TO work and perpet-
uate the race, and these in many cases
will be kept poor and at loss. Hun
dreds of animals on the first of May next,
will not be worth half their winters keep.
Anybody with hands and the material can
feed stock, but everybody cannot make it
pay. A business that does not pay should
be abandoned. Then what will become of
horse loving race, and especially of young
milking America? 1t has occurred to us
that it would be profitable study, and one
of great benefit to the cause of agriculture
and humanity, to collect some of the best
methods of feeding as practiced by the most
successful and experienced feeders, and
then, by asserting, arranging, examining
and sitting, each reader for himself could
retain the good and throw away the chaff
Common sense must be the winnoWer of
this shining dust. We first take up
HORSE FEEDING.
Henry & Marsh, long livery keepers in
this city, feed as follows: At 6 A. N.
four quarts OF oats, then hay is offered; at
noon eight quarts of oats; at night, scoop
shovel full of cut feed, consisting of chaffed
hay and straw, intermingled with wheat
shorts and meal. The night feed is always
the heaviest. They use 200 pounds of
shorts day for 40 horses, and only about
a ton of hay a month. They like oats
ground with corn, but think that clear corn
too hearty. Rye straw is the best of straw
for feed, but all horses love it. The horses
are fed regularly, little food in this way
being considered better than larger guam
tity at random. Water is given three times
a day, the last two times with pail in the
stall. Wheat shorts alone are medicinal,
and may be safely used for sick or idle
horse.
E. A. Patch, a well-known boarding stab
Ter prefers cut feed and meal three times a
day, and long hay the last thing at night.
Farmers usually feed too much hay. Likes
corn meal ground fine. Would not feed on
shorts alone. Hogs can live on horse ma
nure when horses have coarse meal. Rye
and carrots weaken a horse. Horses vary
in their needs, but fifteen pounds Of hay
and meal each, a day, or hundred pounds
each a week is enough for most horses. A
peck of corn meal weighs about fourteen
pounds. A man who gives six quarts Of
meal at one feed usually has a poor horse,
and shows his ignorance Of feeding. Severe
exercise retards digestion, hence a horse
should have less than usual just before and
after hard drive. Water sparingly; half
pailful at once being ample. Too much
water sours horse and deranges digestion.
Regularity conduces thrift, and the cleaner
a horse, the healthier; grooming saves feed.
Geo. Kibbe, the confectioner, who always
keeps good horses and knows how to i'm
prove them, believes in a variety of food as
well as regularity. He would have no two
meals in day alike. Likes a clean manger
and sharp appetite. Fasting sharpens the
appetite. Uses very little long hay, and
never more at time than can be carried
with one hand. Prefers oats first in the
morning, Corn-meal and shorts in equal
quantities, wet, at noon, and cut feed at
night. Cracked corn or corn in the ear is
desirable once week. Uses thin blanket
in the stable. A horse treated in this way
generally looks and feels well, and is ready
for service. At Quincy, His, where Mr..
Kibbe spent last winter, they feed horses
horses twelve ears of corn three times a day.
Nearly one-third Of their horses are blind or
have white eyes, caused, doubtless, by Civ
ing corn to colts. Mature horses can bear
corn better.
William Pynchon, thrifty farmer of this
CITY, feeds his work horses thus: At A. M,
four quarts of oats, then little dry hay; at
night cut feed in which there is three quarts
each of cob meal and oats. Water is given
three times a day, but only after eating.
Colts and idle horses get long hay morning
and noon, and cut oat straw, on which is
four quarts of wheat bran, at night. They
are watered at 10 A. NJ, and only once a
day.
At the Worcester Insane Hospital, where
everything is well systematized, and seven
or eight horses kept, they feed three times
day, as follows: Dry cracked corn in the
morning, followed by handful Of long hay;
carrots and long hay at noon; cut feed with
corn meal at night.
At a Boston livery stable of 30 horses,
where hay costs S43 a ton, and oats $1.06 a
bushel, twelve quarts Of oats and ten pounds
of hay is the daily allowance. The heaviest
feed is given at night. Cut feed and meal
is used only summers, because it does not
freeze. Like wheat shorts to regulate the
sick horses. Prefer loose hay to baled, be-
cause it has less chance to cheat.
At the Boston city stables, where 81 large
horses are kept, under the superintendent
of G. +. Cutler, they feed cut hay and meal
at A. A. NJ, nine quarts of cracked corn and
oats at noon, and cut feed at night. On an
average, the horses eat $3.50 worth of meal
a week. Their hay comes in 800 pound
bales from Maine, is heavily bound with
birch withes, and costs $42 a ton. Here is a
| large new brick stable, conveniently sit
uated for drainage into the back bay,
and other systems more Theoretical
than practical. The horses face
each other and have a good feeding passage
| between. They are separated from each
other on the sides, in part, by an IRON lat
tice. This allows them to see each other
makes them unaesy and wasteful, and has
many of the disadvantages Of feeding at
| picket rope. The managers are OF iron
! which at times must be cold and uncom'
! Portable. The floors are spared, Ostensibly
! to take away the urine, but really damag
ing the horses foot by naming it dry and
crackly. Back of the horses is an iroI
crib for holding and drying the nightly bed
ding. The crib is bad to back against, and
has been known to trip an awkward beast
The solid manure of these horses brings s.
per head par annum. Collecting swill anl
garbage is their chief business; which solid
fled and drained, brings IS per cord, o
about $4,000 per annum. 1t costs abou
$4,000 to collect it, the improved health o.
! the CITY making I'D for the deficit.