Feeding Pure-Bred Draft Fillies

No. 192 OBJECT. To determine the efficiency of alfalfa hay, corn, and oats in growing pure-bred draft fillies to two years of age. PLAN. Ten pure-bred Percheron fillies were fed from weanlings to two years of age. The experiment, covering two winter and one summer feeding periods, began December 8, 1914, and ended when the fillies were turned on pasture May 8, 1916. Oats and corn were fed, one-half of each by weight, with alfalfa hay as the sole roughage. The pasture was a blue-grass sod, containing a slight mixture of other grasses. Page 427 RESULTS. The trial seemed to indicate that a liberal portion of well-cured legume hay should be the foundation for feeding young, growing horses. A long with this roughage, enough grain should be fed to produce the desired growth. In this experiment it seemed necessary, unless the fillies received a set-back in growth, to feed some grain thruout the pasture season. Pages 429, 434 Alfalfa hay fed with corn and oats gave results of a character which indicates that there is little or no need of feeding purchased mill feeds to growing horses when alfalfa can be grown on the farm. When alfalfa hay is the roughage used, a considerable proportion of the grain ration may safely be corn. In this experiment the proportion was one-half by weight. Pnge 436 The average total feed consumed per head during the experiment was 45.35 bushels of corn, 79.36 bushels of oats, 2.58 tons of alfalfa hay, and four-fifths of an acre of good grass. The average total gain in weight per individual was 690.5 pounds, and in height, 7.96 inches. The average daily gain was 1% pounds. Pages 434, 437 During the first winter an average of 5.674 pounds of grain and 4.266 pounds of hay was required per pound of gain. The second winter feeding period required an average of 9.228 pounds of grain and 12.99 pounds of hay per pound of gain. Pages 437-438 The ave(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)