Feeding

FEEDING. The proper and economical feed ing of live stock has always attracted the close -study of intelligent stock-growers. The time has long since passed when it is considered true economy to allow young stock to shift for them selves without the intelligent care of the master, and proper feeding. It is no longer thought economical to raise animals on only sufficient food in winter to keep life in them, or until the succeeding spring shall again start them on the new grass. The most successful feeders of to-day feed all stock liberally, and such as are 'destined for human food, are fed fully from birth, and until ready for the butcher's block. But the system of forcing is carefully avoided with all stock intended for either labor, or breed •ng. The object here is to develop strong con stitutions and ample bone and muscle, that a long and useful life may result. Hence a differ ent class of foods are used from those intended for mere fattening. In this, again, the question of the proper foods to be used becomes impor tant. To reach the best results, feeding must be carried out systematically. The mere feeding of an animal constantly full, with rich food, will not necessarily cause it to fatten kindly. The food must be perfect food; that is adapted to the special requirements of the animal. Young ani mals; those required for labor; those to be used for fast driving, and those ready for feeding ripe (fully fat) each require different food, and, indeed, different care. Here again comes in the question of temperature. In some'countries, and this is especially true in the West, stock require perfect artificial means of keeping warm in win ter. In some countries where fuel is cheap and food dear, it has been found economical to use fire-heat in the stables, and also the use of cooked food. In the United States, adding to the food ration, with good shelter is as a rule most eco: nomical. In the fattening of animals, the sooner they can be brought up to a fully fat weight, the greater will be the profit; a weight of say 1,500 pot:Inds for cattle, 300 pounds for the large breeds of swine, 200 pounds for the small breeds, and from 100 to 150 pounds for sheep, according to the breed. To do this they must be pressed for ward from birth, by means of the food best adap ted to the animal, and marketed before they be come fully grown. In summer a pasture con taining a variety of good grasses will furnish this perfect food. If anything is needed more, it may measurably be found, for fattening, in Indian corn, or meal as a supplementary food, to be given at night. For young animals, work •ng, and, fast driving stock, oats are proper. The two first, however, may have any kind of mill stuff, with profit, if cheaper than oats. In the winter all stock in addition to good, sweet hay, should receive daily such grain as will best answer the end, except that corn meal, or corn may constitute a part of the daily ration for all classes of stock, since more fat is required for the animal waste than in summer, For dairy stock the young animals should be fed identically as for working stock, but not forced, since suffi cient frame-work for continued usefulness must be provided. Milking stock may receive largely of corn meal, in winter, and ground rye, oats, barley, or mill feed, according to relative prices. Dr. Thompson, of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, gives the following data in experimen tal researches of the food of animals, and the fattening of cattle, from which we extract to show the correctness of the opinions here stated: The importance of attention to the proper equilibrium of the constituents of the food is clearly pointed out in the following table, from which it is evident, food containing the greatest amount of starch or sugar does not produce the largest quantity of butter, although these substances are.supposed to supply the butter; but the best product of milk and butter is yielded by those species of food which seem to restore the equilibrium of the ani mals most efficiently. The first column in the table represents the food used by two cows; the second column gives the mean milk of the two animals for five days; the third, the butter dur ing periods of five days; while the fourth con tains the amount of nitrogen in the food taken by both animals during the same periods:— Our author says, we may infer, from these results, that grass affords the best products, be cause the nutritive and calorifient constituents are combined in this forth of food, in the most advantageous relations. The other kinds of food have been subjected to certain artificial condi tions, by which their equilibrium may have been disturbed. In the process of hay-making, for example, the coloring matter of the grass is either removed or altered; a portion of the sugar is washed out or destroyed by fermentation, while certain of the soluble salts are removed by every shower of rain which falls during the curing of the hay. Perhaps similar observations are more or less applicable to the other species of food enumerated In relation to this experiment, the grains mentioned may have substituted for them, oats and Indian corn, equal parts. This will, with good hay, constitute approximately a per fect food. Many•analyses collated, compared and brought together have given the following average of equivalents in the principal foods, used in feeding stock: The following are consid ered equivalent to 100 pounds of best meadow hay: 383 parts of oat straw, 460 parts of barley straw, 479 parts of rye straw, 460 parts of wheat straw, 390 parts of potatoes, 382 parts of carrots, 676 parts of turnips, 70 parts of Indian corn, 65 parts of barley, 60 parts of oats, 27 parts of peas, 23 parts of beans, 22 parts of cotton seed or linseed meal. It will be seen that it is neither practic able to feed on straw alone, or on turnips alone. They could not eat enough straw to support life in winter, that is to say, 120 pounds per day; so the turnips would be too watery, but by combin ing the different substances named, as Indian corn, with straw, hay and carrots, or straw, hay and corn, we may make a perfect food represent ing 100, and that will keep the animal in thrift, and at the same time consume straw, otherwise of little value. There is one other important point in the feeding of stock that deserves special notice. They are more creatures of habit than is gener ally supposed. Hence the imperative necessity of feeding at strictly regular hours. Another important matter is the necessity of changing their diet. Animals will live on one particular food. They will even thrive for a time ; but the best results, economically considered, have always been gained by varying the food, accord ing to the appetite of the animal. The power of animals t accommodate themselves to new forms of food, is extraordinary. Grass-eating animals may be transformed into grain-eating animals, but, here again, grain is one of the natural foods of the genus bos (ox) and equus (horse). The dog however, in a wild state, is strictly a carnivorous animal, but in a state of domesticity, they may be kept iu good health without a particle of meat; but, here again, the food must be highly nitrogenous, and the carbon must be in the form of oil rather than of starch. Icelandic cows are said to be fed partially on dried fish. Horses in Central Asia are recorded to be fed on raw meats, and both horses and cattle have been fed on beef tea and soups to restore them from a debilitated to a stronger condition. Yet this change in sus tenance was not brought about suddenly. It was accomplished gradually, year by year, generation by generation. The change from green to dry, and dry to green food should be measurably so. It is as necessary as that they be not confined exclusively to one diet. Dr. Wolff, a competent German authority, found that thirty pounds of best young clover hay per day, would keep a cow in good milk. This contains of dry substance, twenty-three pounds, of this, the albuminoids, 3.21; the carbohydrates, 11.28, and the fat, 0.63,

or 15.12 of the twenty-three parts was digested. The richest and best meadow hay, he found to contain, in thirty pounds, 23.2 pounds of organic substance, of this the following are digestible : Albuminoids, 2.49 pounds; carbohydrates, 12.75 pounds, and fat, 0.42 pounds; or in the 23.2 parts, 15.66 parts are digestible. Hay in the West is one of the most expensive of the stock foods raised in all that great region known as the corn belt. In the more central portions of the corn zone, a ton of corn and fodder can be produced for less money than a ton of the best meadow hay. Hence, feeders use as largely of corn as possible, and when finishing off cattle fat, it is given almost exclusively, or with only enough rough fodder to properly divide it. Regularity in the amount of the ration fed is of particular importance. All animals should be fed at exactly regular hours, and just what they will eat clean. If any is left, it should be removed and given to other hungrier animals. As to the time of feeding three times a day is sufficient for all except the horse. The horse should have three or four feeds of grain per day, according to the nature of his work, and also hay in his manger at all times. In the horse, unlike the ox and sheep, the stomach is small, and requires filling often. The same is measur ably true of swine. The best results with fattening swine will be found to be to give them what they will eat clean. four times a day. Whatever the food used in fattening animals, the object of the feeder should be to get the greatest quantity of food eaten daily that the animal may be capable Of digesting. There will always be some animals. that will be delicate and indifferent feeders. These should always be separated from the hearty ones and given special care and food. Get rid of them at the first possible opportunity ; certainly as soon at they are in passably salable condition. There is no money either in trying to raise or fat ten such. When cattle are kept in a stable there should be a room, frost proof, where the morning's food may. he prepared over night, if mixed food or wet food is given. If meal or other grain food is given without mixing with hay or straw—and in our opinion this is better for cattle—it should be given only moist enough so it will not be dry. A little experience will soon enable the feeder to so prepare the meal for the whole stock over night, that it will be in proper condition in the morning. If it be mixed with cut food, use clear bright oat straw if possible, and not cut shorter than two inches. Experience has proved the inutility of feeding hard, cut fodder, to cattle, and especially that cut short. Feed just what they will eat clean night and morning. Supplement this through the day with what good hay they will eat. What is left from day to day may be taken from the mangers and given to the stock cattle in the yards. Whatever the bedding used, it should be soft and plentiful. Many good feeders, however, prefer a hard smooth floor. Our own experience is not averse to this. If the passage ways to the urine conduits are properly made, animals may thus be kept both clean and comfort able. In the West and South, comparatively few cattle are fed in stables, Where food is plenty and cheap and labor scarce and high, the feeder will figure very closely as between enhanced weights in fattening, and the cost of putting on the flesh. Hay is often a scarce commodity. Corn to be fed must be husked, shelled and ground. it is fed in the ear, we pre fer it snapped with the husk on. Under any system of feeding whole grain, much is lost for the want of proper digestion, when swine are not used as gleaners of the droppings. Care ful experiments made some years since at the Illinois Industrial University, as between feeding in stables with ground and unground corn, showed a decided profit in the latter way of feeding. This we have also found to be the case. Under this system of feeding, whether the stock are fed snapped corn,—that is, corn pulled from the standing stalks with so much of the husk as will adhere, or fed with husked corn, very little is lost. The cattle are fed plentifully. What they leave and that which passes undigested is picked up by swine, two of each being usually allowed to each steer to be fattened, and at the end of the day the hogs are given some corn additional, if they need it. Thus, except in very inclement weather, steers may be made fat on about fifty bushels of corn in about three to four months feeding, and the shoats require but little additional food to bring them up to heavy weights. The illustration, page 334, shows a Short Horn steer from flush pasture, and fattened in the field. The best plan we have ever tried for out-door fattening is to feed corn cut at the roots and shocked. This is hauled daily on truck wagons, when the ground is hard, or on sleds when there is snow, and fed, corn and fodder together. The cattle are not expected to eat the fodder clean, but usually they may be expected to consume the blades, which with the ears are the valuable part. The feeding is twice a day, in feeding lots—a lot for the morning feed and one for the evening feed. The cattle being about done with the ears, hogs are turned in to glean the scattered corn and drOppings. Thus, whatever the system of feed ing, if cattle have shelter from stormy and inclement weather, they may be made very fat, and healthfully so, and, where labor is scarce and corn cheap, at a minimum expense. We could give tables of foods without number. It is hardly necessary; certainly not in the West, the South, and Southwest, where corn is found in plenty, and the feeding can not be carried on scientifically, with profit, on account of the cheapness of food. The feeder must be guided almost solely by the relative 'prices of commodi ties. Corn, either in its natural state or ground, ous food for growing animals; that, thus fed, they will lack bone and muscle, and cannot be expected to grow up healthy. If an animal were to be raised exclusively on corn this might be true, but the same would be true of other grain. Neither horses, cattle, or sheep can be properly raised exclusively on grain. Oats aie undoubtedly the best grain that can be fed to growing stock in connection with hay. Oats, however, cannot be afforded. Good hay is a perfect food, so far as the distension of the stomach is concerned. The animal cannot eat enough to fatten upon. Our pastures make a perfect food, so far as muscular development is concerned. For cattle, whole corn, that is, the ears, husks, and leaves, forms a perfect food either for growing or fattening stock in winter, so soon as they get strength of jaw sufficient to crush the corn. Therefore, no breeder need be will be the chief reliance for fattening. When is the case, and it is deemed necessary, the following will be found to he a good condiment for special feeding, to be given one pound with each feed of meal: Twenty-five pounds ground linseed oil-cake, ten pounds ground flaxseed, forty pounds cornmeal, twenty-four ounces ground turmeric root, two ounces ginger, two ounces carraway seed, eight ounces gentian, two ounces cream of tartar, one pound sulphur, one pound common salt and ten ounces coriander seed. Mix the whole together, and when fed use a -quarter of a pound of molasses to each feed, the molasses to be used in the water for wetting the food in which the condiment is given. Where sorghum molasses is made this will not be found to be expensive. So much has been said by theorists about perfect foods, and the danger from feeding corn, that many persons have been brought to believe that corn is almost a danger afraid that cattle from calfhood up will fail to develop, with plenty of good hay and corn, or corn meal in winter, and plenty of good, flush pasture in summer, with pure water at all times. In conclusion, it is only necessary to add that he who feeds best has the best stock and makes the most money.