CHAPTER XXIII 



THE HORSE BREEDING AND BREAKING 



Breeding Selection of the Mare Shelter Treatment of a Farm Brood 

 Mare Taking the Horse Difficulties about Conception The Foal 

 Rearing by Hand Joint-ill or Navel-ill Haltering and General 

 Treatment Young Cart-Horses Young Blood Stock Food of a 

 Colt Castration Strangles Docking Breaking The Age of a 

 Horse from his Teeth Williams' Horse Measuring Standard. 



SOUND, well-built, and compact animals of good blood and 

 good pluck, and free from any vicious tendency of 

 temper, should be selected to breed from. 



Three years old used to be considered the proper age to 

 put a mare to the stallion, since with an immature dam, as with 

 one too old for breeding, the foal may be small and weakly. 

 But in these latter days of early maturity and high feeding it 

 is found that the best Shire foals are born to fillies put to 

 the horse at two years old. Young entires begin to serve 

 at the same age, but prize-winning two-year-old fillies are 

 kept back for a time in the interests of their showyard 

 career. May is the best month for foaling, as there is 

 then an abundant supply of green food, and the weather 

 is mild enough for brood mares to lie out in the fields. 

 Where shelter is available, in the form of cosy paddocks, 

 shelter-sheds, or loose-boxes, there is an advantage in the 

 case of animals which are to enter showyard competitions 

 to be born two or three months earlier. Since Stud Books 

 came into existence, ages usually date from the first day of 

 January, and it is difficult for the best young animal to make 

 up age-leeway during the first two years. 



Substantial inexpensive sheds, sheltered from the cold 

 east and north winds, are made of old railway sleepers, 

 usually 9 feet long by 9 inches wide, placed on end to form 

 the walls, and sunk 2 feet into a dry piece of ground with a 

 good fall for the escape of surface water, with a roof of light 

 scantling covered with corrugated iron, and gutters under the 



