Foot) AND FEEDING VALUE. The oat plant fur nishes green forage, hay, and straw, while the ripe grain and its milling products are of great importance as foods and feeding stuffs. The grain has long been used as a fool for man, in the United )states chiefly as a breakfast food. In the following table the average percentage composition 01 a number of oat products is shown: When oats are low iu price they may be profit ably fed to sheep for the production of mutton. Like wheat, they induce growth rather than the production of fat. \\lien it is desired to fatten lambs some corn should be fed with the oats. tats are useful for poultry, ground oats being very valuable as one of the constituents of the Morning ration.
The different milling and by-products obtained from oats resemble the whole grain more or less closely. The hulls represent the loose outer covering of the grain, and the shorts (called also middlings or feed) and the bran consist of the oat forage and hay compare favorably with similar products from the common grasses. (See liar.) oat strave contains a higher percentage of crude tilde than tie hays. due to the fact that as the plant ripens the percentage of erode fibre increases. Ilay and straw may N. fell whole or chopped. The oat grain is rich in protein and carbohydrates and contains a fairly high per centage of fat. It is very valuable for all classes of faint animals. though it is perhaps most com monly thought of as a feeding sluff for horses. It has been claimed that oats contain a peeulior stimulating principle, 'avenine,' to which is Inci their especial value as it horse Iced. Careful analysis fails to detect 'avenine.' and the common
opinion now is that there is no such substance in the oat. Although the reason is not definitely outer layers of the kernels. After the grain is hulled in milling the little tuft of hairs on the end of the kernel is removed. These accumulate and constitute the basis of 'oat dust.' The mate rial. which should also contain some broken ker nels, is a useful stuff provided it does not also contain too much mill sweepings. The 111111: resemble the straw in composition and are not regarded as an especially valuable feed. The bran and middlings contain a large amount of nutritive material in proportion to their bulk. The oat feeds marketed under various trade names are mixtures of the different oat by-pro ducts with or without other materials. and differ in nutritive value, sonic being much more valuable than others. The average coefficient of of a number of oat products follows: know it. practieally all are agreed that horses fed oats excel in mettle and general it is certain that no feeding stuff is eaten with greater relish. Oats are usually fed unground to horses—grinding being necessary only for foals and for animals whose teeth are not good. New oats should not be fed to as they cause tenseness of the bowels and render tie animals liable to sweat easily and put them of condition. The reason for the hall of /WW oats is not definitely known. For very young pigs. oats should ho ground and the hulls removed by sievilw. For more or less mature pigs and for breeding stock 51.1111' oats, either ground or unground, are very desirable.