Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-07-29
FEEDING HORSES.


FEEDING HORSES.
Give Them More heterogeneous Food and
Less Corn--WorL Horses.
One sees the finest draft horses in the
streets Of English cities. Those equine
monsters, the brewers horses, black as
coal, sleek and spirited, are strong
enough to walk off with ease with load
of six or seven tons. The solid food of
these giants of their race mainly consists
+, f crushed oats or barley and beans, with
ilcaves Of green barley and tares, in addi-
lion TO the accustomed hay. Sometimes
bread is given and eaten with avidity
and on Sundays mash having u dozen
eggs In it, us IL sweet morsel, in addition
to the regular food. This is an excellent
thing for the skin, and the coat glistens
like satin under this kind of feeding.
These horses havethe advantage of the
richest kind of diet in their beans. These
contain as much nitrogen as lean beef,
and for the restoration of wasted muscle
caused by hard work the heterogeneous
elements of food are specially useful. We
have no such food for our horses on this
side of the world. Our climate seems to
be Cnfavorablc for the growth of the
crop. but we have a substitute almost
precisely constituted in the dried brew
ers' grains that have recently come into
the market. Peas have nearly the same
composition as beans and might be used
as substitute for them, but the south
ern COW pea is bean. and the sofa bean,
close related, is equally rich in this need
ed heterogeneous matter. This beam is the
choice food fo~ horses il India and is
well worth cultivation here as partial
substitute for our too starchy corn.
No doubt many of the common all
ments of horses in America are due to
excessive corn feeding, and our animals
would be far more healthy if such food
as bran Or linseed oil ineal-quite differ
ent now from what it was years ago,
since the oil is almost completely ex-
tracted by the new process-were used
more frequently.
But anyhow, there should be greater
variety provided for these valuable ami
mails, to whom so much gratitude is due
for their Indispensable services in the
field, and more labor might be well
spent in tie preparation of the food.
The hay should be cut finely, or. as it is
otherwise called. chaffed. This should
be the rule. The food thus prepared is
fully one-third more nutritious than the
long hay, given with whole grain--the
most wasteful manner of feeding horse.
This cut hay, or partly bay and straw,
is wetted with water sweetened with q
few ounces Of molasses, and the ground
grain food is mixed with it. This is the
ordinary ration, changed frequently by
the mash, and the grain fodder with the
other kinds of meals. On resting days
oats may he given whole, when the ami
nal will relish the change and take time
to cat them slowly.
One of the most acceptable green foods
for horse is the mixed oats and peas
II bushels of peas sown with 2! of oats
on an acre-and when the peas are in full
blossom the fodder is ready for use.
That which is not used before the grain
is ripe is cut and dried for feeding with
the grain IN it, but cut into chaff. or it
may be thrashed and the grain ground
and fed with the cut straw moistened
with sweetened water. This sweetness
makes the food more pala.able and also
more nutritious, for sugar Is the sole
carbonaceous food of animals except fat,
as the starch and the cellulose of the food
are always changed into sugar by the
digestive process before it can be assim-
Hated. And the small quantity Of sugar
thus given with the food acts as IL fer
meIt to more readily make the change
of the starch of the food into sugar in
the stomach.
The digestion of food may be very
much interfered with by mistakes in the
watering This should always lie done
before feeding and never soon after it.
The water is absorbed by the intestines
with great rapidity. a few minutes will
suffice to absorb three or four gallons of
water, and this dilutes the salivary Sc
erection so as to supply all the water
needed for the digestion of the food, and
no water will then be needed soon after
feeding. This avoids the washing Of I'M
digested food from the stomach into The
intestines, where it ferments and pro-
duces much gas and causes those frequent
COLES that on the whole reduce the use
fulness of our work horses fully one-half.
for every attack of disease cuts off so
much of the thread of life, and there are
very few horses that are not affected in,
juriously with colic-the result of mis-
tal-ae in faadinp b,t mora in x.-atar;n,
sufficiently to have an appreciable result
on the duration of life.-Country Gentle
man.