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Show CHEAP RATION FOR THE HORSE Corn-Alfalfa. Feed Found to Be as Good as Oats mid Less Expensive in a. Kansas Test. In the big experiment with government govern-ment horses at Fort Riley just completed com-pleted by the Kansas Agricultural college col-lege it was found that other feeds may be substituted entirely for oats in a ration for work horses with as good results and much cheaper. The results of this test, in which 937 horses were used, was made public for the first time at the state institute. insti-tute. Fifteen rations were fed to as many lots of horses and every meal for every one of those 937 horses was weighed and mixed in the proper proportions. pro-portions. Military discipline helped to make the experiment a success. Soldiers at Fort Riley, where the feeding feed-ing was done, were under orders to do the work with the utmost care. Every Ev-ery horse was weighed before and after the test. The average weight of the horses used was 1,150 pounds. They were artillery horses doing as much work as horses on the farm. To find, if possible, a grain or mixture mix-ture of grains ' that would take the place of oats as a horse feed and give as good results, but be more economical, econom-ical, was one object of the test. Another An-other reason for the experiment was to find the value of various hays for horse-feeding purposes. Still another was to determine the effect of grains on the health of the animals used. All these questions were answered. Oats, once and for all, was proved a better feed for work horses than corn, though more expensive. Seventy-six horses fed oats gained 16 pounds an average gain while the same number of horses eating corn lost 29 pounds apiece in the same time. But corn, when fed with the proper amount of alfalfa with the right quality, (jave aa good results as oats and was 60 per cent, cheaper. Alfalfa hay, properly fed, was found to be a more valuable roughage than either timothy or prairie prai-rie hay, and it cheapens the cost of the dally ration from 25 to AO per cent. Th ration six parts of corn, four of oats, four of bran, and timothy hay probably Is the best that can be fed a work horse, though not the cheapest. Horses fed an oat ration did not show any more spirit than those that ate corn, which disproves an old theory. |