Daily south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1881-18??, 1884-10-03
Fitting Stock for Winter.

When stock has been fitted for rough.
ing it, which, of course, means feeding
up to meet cold weather, the owner is
in position to choose between carry
ing over to spring or longer, or send
ing forward to market at any time;
that is, if he has fed up to such state
of fatness as will, more surely than
any other, enable the animal to resist
low degree OF temperature without dis
comfort. II a thick wall of sawdust
around body of ice preserves it from
melting in hot weather longer than
thin wall, then, on the same principle,
a thick wall OF adipose under the hide
of a farm beast protects the animal
from readily suffering by exposure to
cold The sawdust in the one case is
the non-conductor which prevents an
interchange of temperature between the
ice within the wall and the hot air with
out, while, reversing the order, the
layer of fat under the hide of the an
imal prevents the transfer of cold to the
inner tissues, being a non-conductor,
equally efficient witch the wall of saw
dust in the other case. The wall OF fat
once placed beneath the hide is, if fair
protection be given, somewhat easily
held there; while it is hardly possible
to put on this layer during winter cold
without extra protection from the low
temperature.
Hence the wisdom of seeing to it
early in the season, while flesh is easily
acquired, that the gain is put on which
Is sure to be required when the mer-
curry falls low down in the tube.
Roughing it is nothing else than inst-
tuting a warfare between the tissues of
which the animal is made up and the
elements without. A mon. 5nt's reilec-
tion will convince any one of the utter
wastefulness OF dealing out food three
times day in such free quantities as
are required il feed is depended on to
keep up the animal warmth, reasonably
comfortable shelter being denied when
the weather is decidedly cold. DR..
Playfair likened the body of a beast to
a furnace in which fuel is consumed to
produce heat, as the principle is quite
like the feeding of farm animals, in so
far as the food is given to maintain the
animal heat. The continued tendency
towards equalization in temperature OF
bodies and substances in contact, acts
upon live animals exposed to contact
with the outer air, and hence, when
the temperature goes down there is a
struggle within the body in its effort to
pres We its normal temperature. This
effol. may be aptly likened to that made
to warm room with heater but lit
tie fuel being required when the out
side temperature is well up, for the nor
NAL temperature or the animal body is
easily maintained under like oircum-
stances without a special provision Of
food tor this purpose.
Fitting stock for roughing it is very
improbable as preliminary process,
because the term implies exercise.
Without the outdoor exercise in in
clement as well as in all other kinds of
weather, the term roughing it would
hardly apply. Exercise, in proportion
to its extent, calls for increased action
of the lungs and heart, and this lung
action wastes the living tissues rapidly.
1t follows that quietness and seolusion
are the means 10 be used for saving the
tissues. Therefore to feed up for ex-
posure during winter involves great
waste during the preliminary as it does
during the final experiences. But in
this day we hope no one will persist in
the heterodox notion that it is, in any
sense, wise to build up during summer
valuable material that is to be ruthless
ly squandered during the cold months.
With flesh producers, the making of
edible flesh is slow and expensive
process. and flesh once put on should
in no case be parted with. If domestic
animals could be fattened as rapidly as
the carnivora are when they are full
fed then the task would indeed be easy.
But the carnivora eat flesh and tissue
having the constituents of their own
bodies ready prepared, while domestic
animals are built up by slow process
from materials which, while made up
of constituents measurably like the
body, are still, in the main, quite unlike
it. But it is doubtless wise provision
that the flesh counted good for use as
human food is put on by slow pro-
cess, otherwise it would be Habby and
oily; would shrink in the pot and van
ish before cold blast. National Live
Stock Journal.