Since he wants to breed horse breeds, Marin feels that he must also pay attention to feed. For example, pasture issues.
In Europe at the moment, horses usually eat common weeds or ryegrass, etc., and oats are added from time to time as a nutritious meal, and sometimes eggs are added.
However, Marin is also a child from the countryside. He knows that although ryegrass is also a very good forage grass, it depends on the situation.
For example, if ryegrass is harvested before flowering and fruiting, then ryegrass is a very nutritious forage. However, Europe currently regards rye as the staple food, and it is generally not harvested until the rye is mature. At this time, most of the essence of rye has gone to the rye grains, and the nutrition of the straw part is much worse. Feeding horses with such ryegrass stalks is not nutritious.
Once, Marin heard from an uncle who raised cows in his hometown that feeding cows with alfalfa hay before flowering would be much better than using wheat straw and straw. It is said that the daily milk production of a cow can be increased from 23.5 kg to 36.2 kg.
From this, Marin can draw two conclusions—first, alfalfa is really a very good pasture variety; second, once the herb plants bloom and bear fruit, the nutrition goes to the flowers and fruits, and the straw is part of the nutrition. will drop...
Moreover, Marin also saw farmers planting alfalfa in his previous life. That thing can harvest several stubbles a year, which is very suitable for pasture. Moreover, the nutrition in pasture also belongs to fighter level.
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Therefore, Marin decided to start planting alfalfa on the island as pasture for oats. After all, the yield of oats is too low, and the price is too high to eat every day.
Ordinary weeds are not nutritious, and war horses tend to lose weight after eating them. Therefore, letting warhorses usually eat nutrient-rich alfalfa grass is not only rich in nutrition, but also feeds a lot of oats to reduce costs.
In fact, the best horse food in Marin's mind is soybean + alfalfa. Soybeans have higher nutritional value than oats and can extract oil. Alfalfa can provide rich nutrition to war horses on weekdays, and it also tastes good. Therefore, planting alfalfa is absolutely necessary.
So, after the end of spring plowing, Marin hurriedly sent people to the inland area to search for alfalfa seeds...
But unfortunately, in this era, European animal husbandry is not developed. Although Europe also has alfalfa, er, but not many people grow it.
In Europe in this era, ordinary people raised draft horses, and generally used the aged ryegrass that had been removed from the wheat grains, and sometimes added some oats or something.
And the rich and noble families raise war horses, which are very rich, and they mainly use oats with low yield and high price...
Therefore, there are people who really specialize in planting high-quality forage such as alfalfa to raise horses, but there are very few people...
Therefore, Marin sent out many groups of people, but they did not find any alfalfa planters...
After 10 days of knowing, in the Principality of Luxembourg, Marin's men found a horse farm specializing in breeding war horses, and found alfalfa...
Then, Marin sent someone to buy a few bags of alfalfa seeds at a certain price... The asking price of the horse farm was really dark, and a bag of alfalfa seeds was actually asking for 10 gold coins, which was simply extortion...
Although the spring plowing period has passed, there is still a little tail. Therefore, Marin hastily mobilized 200 cattle and a large number of manpower, and urgently vacated 100 acres (600 acres) of land to plant these alfalfa seeds. Of course, before planting, enough base fertilizer was applied.
For the alfalfa on the 600 mu of land, Marin does not plan to harvest a few stubbles a year like picking grass, but directly plans to wait for them to bloom and bear fruit, and harvest the seeds...
Because Marin didn't just plan to get 600 acres of alfalfa, but hoped to promote alfalfa on a large scale in his own territory as an important pasture for raising horses. Even, if there is enough alfalfa grass, Marin plans to let cattle and sheep taste alfalfa grass. In later generations, in those western pastures, cattle and sheep also grew up eating alfalfa grass, and they were fat and strong...
Horses, like humans, have a very important period of growth and development when they are young. For example, if a person eats poorly during the development period, he may not grow tall and may still be very thin.
This situation is very common. For example, the post-50s, 60s, and 70s in China, because of the difficult living conditions when they were young, are generally thinner. In those days, a person who could grow to 1.7 meters was considered a big man.
But the children born in the 1980s and 1990s are a lot taller because they have eaten well since childhood. When the post-90s grew up, 1.8 meters was nothing, and 1.7 meters was considered short.
In the same way, horses also need high-quality forage and concentrated feed during their growth period. Otherwise, if you don't eat well during the growth and development period, you may grow into a thin and weak horse.
Therefore, during the growth and development period of horses, horses need the best forage and concentrate. Of course, ordinary horse breeders also have to take the horses out for a walk frequently, lest the horses can't eat enough and grow into fat horses.
If nothing else, Columbus will reach India safely and bring back soybean seeds. Then, Marin will find a place to plant soybeans, and at the same time vigorously promote the planting of alfalfa.
The strongest concentrated soybeans are paired with the strongest forage alfalfa. I don't believe that the pony will not grow well after eating it. As long as they are fed well, the same batch of horses will have a much higher chance of being trained as war horses.
At that time, Marin can also pull out a large number of horses, form several organized cavalry regiments or even several cavalry divisions, use violent charges, and ruthless iron hooves to crush and trample all enemies...
Of course, it is useless to have good fodder without a good breed of horses. Therefore, Marin started planning to import some good horse breeds. For example, Arabian horses...
Of course, there are also some good horse breeds in the local area. Such as Hanoverian horses, Holstein horses and Friesian horses, etc...
However, at present, these horse breeds have not been specifically bred. Because European countries have not yet begun to pay attention to the issue of horse breeds at this time. Moreover, many of these excellent horse breeds that appeared in later generations were mixed with the blood of other high-quality horse breeds. Among them, the one that has been mixed the most is probably the blood of Arabian horses.
Of course, different eras have different requirements for war horses. For example, in this era, the physical requirements for war horses are very high, and they are first required to be tall and strong.
Because, a horse that is not tall and strong enough can't carry a knight wearing full plate armor...
And when the knight class gradually declined in the 16th century, being tall and strong was no longer a requirement for war horses. Because, at this time, cuirassiers and light cavalry who only wore breastplates and helmets rose. Therefore, at this time, the requirements for war horses have changed from being strong first to speed and endurance. Because, the cavalry combat method has changed from a strong collision to a quick assault...
However, this year, plate armor knights have not yet been eliminated. Therefore, while cultivating medium-sized war horses suitable for cuirassiers and hussars, Marin will also take into account the cultivation of heavy war horses suitable for knights. Sharma, for example, is a very important breeding medium...