106 THE OEANGE COUNTY 



her rather than otherwise, and may be continued almost to 

 the period of her expected parturition. She should, how- 

 ever, be carefully watched, that her labor-pains may not 

 come upon her unawares. She will probably require, when 

 half the period of pregnancy is past, a little addition made 

 to her food. Any possible symptoms of abortion should 

 also be watched, for these will now, if ever, occur. They 

 will probably be attributable to being overworked or not 

 worked at all, or to being over-fed or half starved. It 

 should also be recollected that the mare which has once 

 aborted, is subject to a repetition of this accident, and that 

 all the mares in the pasture are subject to the same mishap, 

 from a strange species of sympathy. 



A day or two after the foal is dropped, providing the 

 weather is fine, it may be turned, with its dam, into a shel- 

 tered paddock, in which there is a hovel for security from 

 the wind and the rain. Hay, corn, and bran mashes must be 

 allowed, if it is early in the season, or the grass has scarcely 

 begun to shoot. There is nothing so detrimental to the colt 

 as insufficient food. It should be regarded as a fundamental 

 principle in breeding, that if the growth of the colt at any 

 time is checked by starvation, beauty, energy, and stoutness 

 will rarely be displayed in after years. 



In five or six months, according to the growth of the foal, 

 the weaning may take place. The colt should be confined to 

 a stable or other building until he becomes a little reconciled 

 to the loss of his dam. 



Too great a distinction, however, is often made between 

 the colts, according to the labor for which they are destined. 

 The one that is designed for somewhat superior service has 

 a hovel in which he is sheltered, while the other is probably 

 exposed to the biting blast, with no food but what he can 

 gather from the frozen ground, except perhaps a morsel of 

 hay and straw, and that not of the best quality, when the 

 herbage is buried in the snow. There is nothing gained 

 by this system of starvation; the farmer may depend upon 

 it, that if, from false economy, the colt is half starved, and his 

 growth arrested, his value will be materially injured as long 

 as he lives. The author of the work on " The Extent and 

 Obligation of Humanity to Brutes," thus describes this neg- 

 lected creature : " The foal that has been left to struggle on 

 as he can, becomes poor and dispirited. He is shrinking 

 under the hedge, cold and shivering, with his head hanging 

 down, and the rheum distilling from his eyes. If he is made 

 to move, he listlessly drags his limbs along, evidently weak, 



