STABLE MANAGEMENT 267 



Mangers. 



Mangers should be made of iron, with a compartment for 

 hay, and another for water, and the whole should be boarded 

 down to the floor. One advantage iron mangers possess is 

 that horses are not tempted to catch hold of them when 

 being dressed, and so learn the trick of crib-biting ; and they 

 are also easily cleansed. Their disadvantage is they are 

 necessarily small, and excitable horses which constantly lift 

 up their heads whilst they are eating are apt to drop some 

 oats each time they do so. When the bedding is straw they 

 often pick up the scattered grain afterwards, scraping away 

 the straw to do so ; but if the bedding is of other material — 

 peat-moss or sawdust — they cannot recover much of what 

 they have dropped. 



Iron mangers should always have a " lip " round the 

 inside, to prevent a common trick amongst horses of shoving 

 some of the corn out with their muzzle when a manger is 

 small ; and to stop this practice when the mangers are 

 wooden they should be of considerable length, so that an 

 animal can spread the feed along them without pushing it 

 out altogether. 



If hay-racks are placed overhead there is always a danger 

 of hay-seeds getting into a horse's eyes when pulling out the 

 hay, and it is better therefore to have them placed low, the 

 same height as the manger. 



In boxes the corners can be utilised for building small 

 brick places, one to hold an iron pot for the oats, and another 

 to be fitted with a zinc pail for the water, both of which 

 should be sunk deep enough for the upper part to be level 

 with the masonry. The vessels should be movable so that 

 they can be easily removed for cleansing purposes. The 

 bricks should be built in the form of a cone, broad at the 

 base and contracting to almost the width of the pot at 

 the top, the object being to prevent a horse from standing 

 so close to it when eating or drinking, that there will be no 

 room for it to jerk a knee up without touching the brick- 

 work, when irritated by flies. The outside should be coated 

 with cement so as to leave the surface quite smooth. 



