THE FARM.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 84, 17 September 1915, Page 1

THE FARM.

Economical Feeding of Horses. A horse requires food if it is not working, says Mr J. W. Faterson, of the West Australian Univeisitv, and this food may bo considered as maintenance. If it is working it requires food in excess of this, and tbe excess may be considered as fuel. If a steam engine is to do a certain amount of work, it requires a certain amount of fuel, and the same is true of a horse. A steam engine can only use about 7 per cent of tbe energy contained in the fuel, whilst a horse can use 31 per cent. The fuel of the engine is wood or coal, and the fuel of the horse is the digested, assimilated food. Various things have to be looked at in a food, viz., in composition, digestibility and energy spent in digesting it. Green foods contain about 75 per cent of water, and this leaves lesß room for tbe nutritive materials or dry matter in a ton of food. If well made, the dry matter in hay is as good as the green material, and there is from three to four times more in a ton of it. The useful materials in the dry matter are the proteins, fats and carbohydrates, all of which are available as animal fuels. The cereal grains supply much carbo-hydrates (starch, etc.), as also do beans and peas, but tbe latter are much richer in proteins. Oats and maize contain 5 or 6 per cent of fats, while barley and wheat contain very little. As food to a horse, proteios are one and a-quarter times better fuel than starch, and fats are nearly two and a-half times better. Foods always contain fibre, and whilst herbivorous animals, like the horse, require some fibre, an excess diminishes the value of the food. The proteins ats and carbo-hydrates of food are each of them groups of substances, and chemical analysis should be used only to compare foods of the same class. It is wrong to compare, say, lucerne bay with maize on the basis of its analysis, because in lucerne the fats and carbo-bydiate groups are differently made up and show a wide difference in their digestibility. Concentrated foods, like grain and cake?, are more thoroughly digested than coarse fodders, like bran, hay or straw. Fiom careful experiments it has been found that a certain percentage only of each constituent of each food is digested, and what is not digested is of no use. Of, wheat and maize almost 'JO per cent is digested, of linseed cake, 80 per cent; oats, 70 per cent; bran and lucerne, 60 per cent; ar.d wheat straw about 40 per cent. The digestibility of hay ij seriously injured by ripening before cutting, in some cases being reduced from about 65 per cent to 48 per cent. The food required to keep an idle horse living is often termed its maintenance diet. Fibtous foods arc all right for a maintenance diet, as the energy spent in digesting them helps to keep up the body temperature. Abcut 101b daily of good lucerne hay and 51b of straw can keep a borse of 10001b at constant weight under favourable condiiiois. If put ti Work, however, the ration must be immediately improved by an addition of cheaply digested foods which oti'er a big surplus of energy after their own digestion is accomplished. Straw, lucerne and bran arc thus cheap maintenance foods, but are not cheap foods for topping up the maintenance diet wben a horse IB required to do work. Work is measured by foot-pounds. One pound of digested assimilated stanch, or its equivalent, supplies energy for nearly one and three-quarter million foot pounds, and thus for ordinary work about 61b of digested assimilated starch or its equivalent, and for hard work 9Jlb are required. Tbe latter could be suppined by 171b of oats or 131b of an equal mixture of oats and maize, or 191b of an equal mixture of oats and bran. These foods will be in addition to the hay and large loods required for maintenance. Tbe chief thing to attend to in a labour ration is to supply sufficient digested food in the form of starch or its equivalent. It is now known that work does not require a ration rich in protein (albuminoid). "Albuminoids ratio" means tbe ratio of tbe digested nonproteins in the fcod reckoned as starch. A ration of 1 in 7 would be ample for a draught horse, and a diet of oats end good hay is easily within the limit. A ration containing all its grain, as maize, would be risky, if the Lay were

poor, end the iduition of molasses would make it worse. With these exeeptiors it is unnecessary to trouble atout an "aibuminoid rstio." Fast hoi sea require a rather higher pioporlion of albuminoids (proteins) than draughts, and for thtse maize should only be ueed in email quantibs. On this account bran or whet g<) better with oaten than with wheatcn hay, and maize goes well with either. Taken by themselves oats make tbe beßt corn for horses, but not the mast economical. The following daily rations are suggested:— Draught torses: Uation 1, 181b of hay, 141b of oats; ration 2. 181b of hay, Gib dried grains, 21b pollard, 41b bran, 21b maize. Light legged burses: Ration 1, 101b hay, Itilb oats; ration 2, 101b hay, 61b uats, 21b beats, 51b dried grains, 21b bran. Smaller borsis require less. Ihe hay referred to in these tables is presumably grass ur clover hay, but tbe difference between that and good cereal hay need hardly he considered for local practice. In considering tbe value of a food, suitable composition, digestibilty, and cost of digestion are not everything. Palatability, regular feeding and general good management are essential to success.