LIVE STOCK, The Feeding of. Bal anced ration is the amount of food fed to an animal in one day of 24 hours. As with humans this ration is usually fed in three meals. A balanced ration is a ration which will fully meet all the physiological needs of the particular animal to which it is to be fed. Very briefly a properly balanced ration must meet the following principal needs: 1. There must be sufficient food to furnish the energy to enable the given animal to do its work.
2. The ration must have the proper amount of protein and the right kited of protein to meet the body needs for this important constituent.
3. The ration must supply the proper mineral elements.
4. The ration must supply the proper amounts of those not very well understood sub stances which are called growth accessories or vitamines.
Only those rations which meet these four primary needs can be said to be properly bal anced. Therefore it is necessary to know some thing of the composition of the animal body and of feeds in order to understand why feeds should be grouped in certain proportions to constitute what is called a ration.
The body of any animal is made up of water and dry matter which must all come from the food.
The Water in the animal body serves four purposes: first, it is a part of all bone and flesh •, second, it serves as a carrier of food from the digestive tract, or from those parts of the body where the food is put into suitable shape to be used by the body cells, to those cells wherever they may be located; third, water serves to carry away the wastes of the body through the perspiration and the urine; fourth, it serves to equalize the temperature. This water in the body comes from the water that the animal drinks and from the water in the succulent parts of the food. The water in the animal body constitutes on an average about 50 per cent of the live weight.
The Dry Matter of the Body is made up of many chemical elements — for example, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and perhaps half a dozen others. These ele ments are arranged in all sorts of combinations, to form bones, flesh, hide, hair, hoofs and other parts of the body. For the purpose of this dis
cussion, in order to get a clear understanding of the relation of the food to the body the dry matter may be divided into four groups of sub stances, namely, ash, nitrogenous substances or protein, carbohydrates and fast. The dry mat ter of the body is so grouped because this is the usual grouping of the chemical compounds that make up plants, and it is desired to study the relation of the groups in plants with the same groups in the body.
Demands of the Animal from Its Food.— Animals need food to maintain their existence, which is dependent on matter and energy. The part of the body that is more or less permanent is that made up of ash and protein, while the carbohydrates and fats are more changeable and have to do more with the energy of the body. However the tissues are constantly be ing worn out, and must be replaced, and this requires a new supply of ash and protein from the food.
Besides the ash and the protein constantly being replaced in the mature animal, the grow ing animal must have matter to form new tis sue, and the productive animal must have matter for products such as milk, eggs, wool and the like, all of which contain ash, fat, protein and carbohydrates. Then, in the preg nant female, ash, fat, protein and carbohydrates are needed for the growth of the young.
After this matter has been supplied from the food for the maintenance of the dry matter of the body, there is a still further demand on the food to furnish energy to the animal for vari ous uses. First, the temperature of the animal body must be about 100° F., and, while the tem perature of the surrounding air may vary all the way from —20° to + 90° F., this body temperature must be kept practically constant, requiring considerable energy in the form of heat; energy is required to keep up all the changes in the body in preparing food for use by the body, to take that food where it is needed, and to carry out waste matter from the body; third, energy is needed to manufacture products such as milk, wool, eggs and the like; fourth, energy is needed to enable the animal to do work, as in the case of the horse.