Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-02-27
Injury to Horses from Dry Feeding.

IT is well known that horses kept in
stables for a long time exclusively on dry
food, and generally when fully fed on
grain, become gaunt, hard and ry-feshed,
the hair becomes harsh and the skin loses
that peculiar mellow feeling, especially
when kept in city stables, indicative of
the healthy animal. In the end it is sold
for little or nothing, or else descends
down, through all the gradatiOns of horse
poverty, to the street peddler's or scaven-
gers cart. Finally the animal wastes
away altogether and dies, or else is car
ried off by the first epidemic that occurs.
One of the most serious effects of this
course of feeding is undoubtedly indiges-
ton, which being aggravated, from time
to time, at last becomes chronic. This
is one of the chief sources of the loss of
horses in our large cities. Especially is
this the case with that class of horses
that, under the care of ignorant grooms
and doing but little work except to the
family carriage, are especially susceptible
to this infirmity. Hard fare and more
work may assist them to partially recover,
but they never come back to real health
unless they can run for summer at least
on very short pasture; if they can have
the first half of the winter, with warm
shed for shelter, with rather short COM
mons of good hay and few carrots until
February, so much the better. They may
then be gradually fed grain and carrots
and, by spring, their coats will again be
blooming, and they will have regained
their old life and mettle.
The cause is that the animals have suf-
fered from continued dry feeding, or
stufing with grain at the hands of igno-
roNn4 6,.sxy Nd
foundered, or grain-killed, as this disabil-
ever, they are confirmed dyspeptics. The
effect of this course of feeding is observa-
BILE in many farm horses when fully fed
upon grain for considerable length of
time, whether at work or not, particu-
larly, as is often the case in the West, if
they be not pastured in summer. The
remedy. is plain and simple: When
horses are idle in the winter, the grain
should be taken from them in great de-
gree, and if it be observed that they have
inordinate appetites, without due condi-
ton, the remedy should be applied as
before stated. In the absence of carrots,
they should be fed light bran mashes, or
other similar food, and be allowed the
run of a yard until the detected appear
ance and staring coat is removed, and the
skin again becomes soft to the touch.
There are individuals near all our large
cities who make business of buying
such horses, and treating them as we
have shown, re-selling them in from
eight to twelve months.
The livery stable men, and those keep.
ing large stables of horses, we'll under
stand the effects of constant feeding on
dry food, and consequently buy carrots at
high prices, from the well known effect
that the feeding of these roots has on the
digestive organs of farm animals, and es
pecially on horses, to which they seem
particularly adapted and grateful.
IF every farmer would raise from fifteen
to twenty-five bushels of carrots for every
team kept, thereafter the feeder would
never be without this invaluable and nat
ural remedy for bringing back to health
animals that have been injured from the
overlooking of grain. 1t is well known
that horse on full work will do better on
twelve quarts of oats day, with the add
ton of a peck of carrots and due pro.
portion of good hay, than on three pecks
of oats without the carrots. In the winter
season, until the first of February, horses
unless worked, are altogether better with
out grain at all, if fed carrots and hay
than they would be with grain.
There is feeling among farmers that ii
costs more to raise bushel of carrots
than a bushel of grain. This is the fact
unless the soil be in high condition and
the crop be kept clean. If this be the