The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-01-29
Feeding Stock Horses.


power on the farm, and therefore needs
the best attention. This class of stock
is kept wholly for it's muscle, and the
working and culture of the farm must
depend greatly upon the character and
condition of the horses. The winter
season is one of comparative leisure for
horses, as farms are usually managed,
and farmers appear to think horses re-
quire little attention when they are not
in hard labor. They are quite in the
habit of keeping them upon poor hay
and straw at this season. reserving all
grain for spring feeding. But this is
very bad policy. Horses generally come
to winter quarters in thin condition
from their summers labor, and require
judicious feeding and good care to re-
cover their full working capacity; and
farmers should remember that it is
much cheaper to put horses in condi-
ton when work is very light, and that
all the extra flesh put on in winter rep
resents SO much extra labor available
in spring. Besides it should always be
the aim of team-owners to keep their
horses in good working condition, for
it takes less food to keep up condition
than to recover it when lost.
Let us examine a few rations for
work horses in winter. Horses are
often subject to collie from improper
feeding. When fed upon corn-meal
alone, its large percentage of starch
renders it too heating, and, besides, it
is very concentrated food, and being
just moistened with saliva SO as to be
swallowed, it goes into the stomach in
the compact form Of dough, and the
gastric juice cannot circulate through it
so as properly to perform its Office, and
internal heat, fever and collie often
occur from want of proper digestion.
All such concentrated food should be
mixed with cut hay, the hay being just
moistened SO that the meal will adhere
to it. This mixes the concentrated
with the bulky food, and the hay separ-
ates the particles of meal so as to rem
der the mixture porous and the gastric
juice now circulates freely through the
mass and operates upon the whole con-
tents of the stomach at once. The
best way to use corn-meal as a single
grain food, is to mix it with moistened
clover hay. If the clover is of good
quality, it contains larger per centage
of albuminoids (muscle- forming food)
than corn-meal, and thus helps to bal
ance the constituents.
But one of the best rations for work
horses is corn, oats and fiaxseed,
ground together--the corn and oats in
equal eight, and to nineteen bushels
of the mixture of corn and oats add one
bushel of flaxseed, and grind fine, all
together. The corn and oats make a
well-balanced ration, and the flaxseed
is rich in oil, muscle-forming and bone
building elements; but its oil is its
greatest sanitary element. This small
proportion of oil is just sufficient to
keep the bowels in excellent condition,
the coat sleek, and every part of the
system in we'll balanced activity. And
then by feeding this ground mixture
with twice its bulk Of moistened cut
hay you have as perfect ration for
work horses as can be compounded.
All regular grist-mills now have an APP
paratus for mixing different grains to-
gether, so that the farmer has only to
carry the oats, corn, or faxseed in
proper quantity to mill, and they will
all be mixed without hand labor. If
the farmer has no straw-cutter he may
use oats or wheat chat to mix with the
meal to render it porous.
In. wintering horses that are doing
but little work, straw may be fed with
the last ration and the horses will do
well. From eight to ten pounds of this
meal to each horse daily will bring
them through finely, even on good
straw. When oats are too expensive,
cornmeal and wheat bran mixed in
equal weights, with one pint of oatmeal
to each horse, will give a good result.
If hay is scarce, two pounds of decorti-
Gated cotton-seed meal, four pounds of
cornmeal, four pounds of bran and
straw will winter horses well. But
there should always be a variety in the
food. If the farmer has clover hay and
straw, these should be mixed together
better if both be cut before mixing, but
they may be mixed in the manger with
out cutting.-E W. Stewart, IN Rural
NeU Yorker.