, 1902-04-15
What Is a Maintenance Ration for a Horse ?

In order to determine how much hay is required to maintain
the University horses in winter, the following trials of feeding
and weighing the horses were made.
These horses are fed no grain. The stable feed is alfalfa
hay. They are occasionally harnessed, but not worked much.
Ordinarily these horses have been running out and have had
free access to water and to a straw pile,
Under these circumstances the gray pair, Ben and Doc,
were fed in the stable twice daily all the hay they would take.
The hay was weighed for thirty days, Jan. 9TH to Feb 9TH, both
dates included, but excluding two days, Jan. 23rd and 24th, on
which they were doing light work at the University. The hay
consumed was, tor Ben, 4o3 pounds, and for Doc, 443 pounds.
Both horses were weighed Jan. 9TH, Sh and 9th, also on the
10th, 18TH and 18th, and 18th, Goth and goth of January.
Ben was off weight on the 10th 18th. His average was, at
beginning, Ioo3H, middle weight 1860, and near the close of
this trial ITO pounds. The average OF the three weights is
1893, but we choose to use the two averages, leaving out the
lighter weights, and these give rloIH pounds. Doc weighed
1890 on seven of the nine times weighed and on the two other
dates was five and three pounds lighter. This gives 1919 pounds
as an average weight.
Taking the weight of either horse in the proportion
Weight OF horse is to 1000 as the weight OF hay eaten per day is
to N-gives for Ben, from a consumption of 1913 pounds per
day, l492 pounds of hay eaten per 1000 pounds of live weight.
Doc ate r476 pounds OF hay per day, which amounts to 1903
pounds per 1000 pounds live weight. The average for both
horses was II. pounds of alfalfa hay per day per 1000 pounds
live weight.
The bay team, Bill and Nell, were also fed and weighed
the same as were Ben and Doc. Weights were taken on the same
dates. These weights show that both were off weight during
the middle of the feeding, but that both gained during the pc
Rod. The average of the three weights taken on the last OF the
three dates was for each one of the pair:
BILL 3D. N Mt
Jan. 9th 1885
Jan. 18th 1858
jan 3oth 1888
In making an average as above for Ben and Doc, we prefer
to Use the first and last weights. In the above case, if the mid
die weights are included, the weights of hay per 1000 pounds
live weight would be increased by one-tenth of one pound. We
are inclined to think the horses were maintaining, or gaining,
weight under this feeding and that to ignore the lower weights
gives the closer results. Dropping the middle weights, the hay
consumed per thousand pounds, live weight, was, for Bill,
1865 and Nell, 1903, when these horses ate 47oH and 492A
pounds, each, in thirty days. Therefore, these four horses,
when given their freedom most of the time, with liberty to eat
at a straw stack whenever they chose to do so, and with scarcely
no work, consumed an average of 1876 pounds of good alfalfa
hay per day.
STRAW REQUIRED TO BALANCE AN ALFALFA HAY RATION.
The horses ate straw very regularly during the above feed
ing trials and it seems that they needed more carbohydrates than
alfalfa hay furnishes for a maintenance diet where the ratio
of carbohydrates should be not far from 7 or 8 to I of protein,
while the ratio in alfalfa hay is little more than 3 to I.
Ben and Doc were accordingly put in the stable and fed al
falfa hay morning and evening and were given an ad libitum
feed of straw during the day.
We take twelve days of this feeding with alfalfa hay and
oat straw, since from the effect of the season the grain did not
fill well, hence, doubtless, more of the material gathered to fill
the kernel must have been left in the straw.
These horses consumed the amounts of hay and straw fol
lowing their weights as given below:
BEN Doc