J. W. Robison, a Kansas breeder of Percherons, who ranks among the foremost anywhere, raises his colts to three years at an average weight of 1700 pounds and his four-year-olds at 1900 pounds, ready for the sale yard, on alfalfa, except such limited quantities of grain as will make it more nearly a properly balanced food, and incidentally expedite growth. His opinion, fortified by sixty years of experience, is that alfalfa as pasturage and hay constitutes by far the most excellent and economical frame- and muscle-forming food available to the live stock industry. His colts have alfalfa as their first green food, and, if foaled in winter, are taught in a few days to nibble the cut hay. He also says colts reared mainly on alfalfa have equal spirit and vigor and better dispositions than those given much grain. His brood mares are made to rely on alfalfa as their main ration, and for three months before foaling it is practically, unless in midwinter, their only feed. As a result they are always in ideal condition, their colts are delivered easily, the mares give an abundance of nourishing milk, free from feverish tendencies, and the colts are robustly rugged from their beginning. The cost of rearing colts and horses by this method, he says, is less, quality and rapidity of their growth considered, than by any other of which he has knowledge.

The well-known J. E. Wing, of Ohio, says: “There is no one thing so good for the work horse as alfalfa. He needs less grain, and has more life and spirit than when fed upon any other hay, yet even working teams can, on account of its richness, be fed too much. This puts an undue strain upon their excretory organs to eliminate the unnecessary food substances from the tissues. The overfeeding of alfalfa hay to horses has in some localities caused the use of it to become unpopular, and to raise an outcry against it. The writer has fed no other hay to his horses—working teams, driving horses, mares and foals—for many years, and has yet to observe the first instance of evil result, save that the driving horses when not used regularly become soft and easily sweated.

GOOD FOR WORK HORSES

Until recently it was not thought in the eastern states that alfalfa was an especially good feed for horses. On the somewhat noted Watson ranch at Kearney, Nebraska, the grain supply became exhausted one summer when the prices were high. There was an abundance of alfalfa hay, and although it was in August and the horses were at heavy work, such as plowing and ditching, the entire force of eighty was kept on alfalfa hay and but little grain, without any injurious effect. They relished the hay, did the hard work every day and looked as sleek as if on pasture. Since that time alfalfa hay has been the principal ration for all of the farm’s work horses, colts and driving stock.

In western Kansas farm horses have been wintered on a daily feed of 10 pounds of alfalfa hay and some corn stover, and thin horses fattened on alfalfa hay and a little corn.

CRESCEUS EATS ALFALFA

Again, the prevalent notion that it is not good for driving horses has been contradicted by hundreds of farmers who use it for such horses, and by hundreds in western towns who use it for delivery horses, dray horses, and light drivers, as well. In parts of California it is the only hay fed to horses. “Cresceus, the great race horse, is said to have been raised on it and it is said that he is fed no other hay, even while on the racing circuit.” The same was said of Sysonby, the fleetest Thoroughbred in the races of 1905. Many of the city transfer companies in Denver, Kansas City and Omaha use alfalfa hay, claiming that it enables them to reduce their grain ration, while their horses seem stronger and look better than they did with the former feed of corn and timothy.

TOO MUCH HAY FED

It is no doubt true that Americans feed their horses too much hay. It is common among horse owners to let horses stand to full mangers when not at work. In London the cab horses, for example, are given hay for but two hours a day, in the evening. At the end of two hours the mangers are cleared. Careful testing in decreasing the timothy hay ration one-half has not shown that the horses required any more grain than before to keep them in equally good condition.

Horses do not need a heavy ration of alfalfa hay. Fed with grain, probably 10 or 15 pounds of it is equal to a manger full of other hay. As they become accustomed to the alfalfa it may be increased a little, and the grain decreased. It is a rich food and should not be used as freely as hays with less protein.

Prof. L. A. Merrill of the Utah station made six tests of alfalfa hay in comparison with timothy for horses under varying conditions of work, and found that it was less difficult to maintain their weight with alfalfa. The appearance of the horses in every comparison was in favor of the alfalfa-fed horse, and no ill results were noted on their health by long-continued alfalfa feeding. Fourteen-hundred pound horses at hard work could be maintained in condition on 32.6 pounds of alfalfa hay per day, and at rest 20 pounds was sufficient for the same horses.

The quantity of hay fed on most farms could be reduced at least one-half.

With all its merits alfalfa hay is by no means a properly balanced ration for all purposes, and those unacquainted with this fact are liable to feed it, exclusively or otherwise, in such quantities as are both extravagant and harmful. D. C. Smead, a veterinarian of note, in writing about using the hay in too great quantities, especially in feeding horses, says this:

“There is more danger in deranging the digestion or man or beast by an excess of protein than by overfeeding on a carbonaceous food. The proteins in food are more easily acted upon by the digestive fluids, and thus more easily digested and carried into the blood, where an excess means work for the kidneys to carry it off. We can founder a horse more easily on wheat than on corn for this very reason. Alfalfa has a nutritive ratio of practically 1 to 4. An ordinary 1000-pound horse, if given all it will eat of it, will eat from thirty to forty pounds in twenty-four hours. As the alfalfa contains about 11 per cent of easily digested proteins, you will readily see that the horse would be taking into his system nearly four and one-half pounds of protein.

“About two and one-half pounds of digestible protein is all that an ordinary horse or cow of a thousand pounds weight, when at work or in milk, can utilize. In the alfalfa hay we have nearly twice as much as is needed. If it were not for some of it being physicked off, we would soon have an animal with overworked kidneys or muscular stiffness of a rheumatic nature. In case of a mare in foal, when fed on alfalfa and nothing else, the chances are she would drop her colt prematurely, or if it went full time, the colt would be a nice, fat, little, plump fellow, with little vitality and with a tendency to rickets or bowel disease, all because the alfalfa was too narrow a ration.

“Now if we fed this mare alfalfa hay once a day or even twice a day, in moderate quantities, say fifteen pounds, and gave her one feed of straw or timothy hay or corn fodder, which are carbonaceous foods, with a quart of oats a day to impart a little nerve force, we would have her practically on right lines. Alfalfa, good as it is, is not an all-sufficient food for any animal. The danger lies in sections where it is being thrown to the animals relishing it so well and the owner having it in such abundance that it will come to be considered all-sufficient, and then trouble is liable to follow. But fed with judgment it is the best of all protein foods, and will enable the farmer to feed wisely and well many of the unmarketable rough foods he raises, like straw and corn stover, the one balancing the other.”

Here and there are horses with digestive apparatus not suited for the best use of alfalfa, but they are rare exceptions rather than the rule.

PRODUCES RAPID GROWTH

One of the foremost horse breeders in America, who constantly maintains upwards of one hundred head of various ages, writes the author this:

“In my experience of twenty-five years in pasturing horses on alfalfa, results have convinced me that it produces more bone, muscle and blood in horses in less time than any other pasturage with which I am acquainted. But I believe it profitable in raising the best horses to also use a moderate grain ration, to stimulate rapid growth and early development; my horses, however, have shown no ill effects from pasturing on alfalfa without grain, or other feed, and I have found such pasturing conducive to health and prolificacy, maturing animals equal for service to any reared otherwise. I have raised three-year-olds grown on alfalfa and a light grain ration to exceed a ton in weight, carrying all the good qualities of the breed to which they belonged. Further, I find using alfalfa as a horse pasture a much more economical method of raising horses than any other.”