STABLE APPENDAGES. 59 



STABLE APPENDAGES. 



THESE consist of loose boxes ; of apartments for provender 

 and litter ; of a sleeping chamber for the stable-man ; a har- 

 ness-room ; a yard, or shed, for grooming and exercise ; and 

 a water-pond. Of the construction, size, situation, and ar- 

 rangement of these, I have little to say. My principal object 

 is to consider them in relation to the health, vigor, safety, and 

 convenience of the horse. 



LOOSE BOXES are merely large stalls, or apartments for 

 one horse, in which he is shut up without being confined by 

 the head. The horse is loose, and hence the name given to 

 these places. They form a very necessary appendage to all 

 stables whether large or small, yet they are too often forgot- 

 ten in the construction of these buildings. Their utility is 

 unquestionable. In the sickness of inflamed lungs, the mad- 

 ness of brain-fever, and the agony of colic, they confer qui- 

 etness, repose, and safety. They permit the lame horse to 

 lie down, and to rise easily and often, without the risk of in- 

 flicting further injury. For a fatigued horse, there is no 

 place like a loose box. There he can stretch his wearied 

 limbs in ease and quietness. An overtasked hunter will re- 

 cover his vigor and activity a full day sooner in a loose box 

 than in a stall. Some horses will not lie down when tied by 

 the head, and they soon injure their legs and become unfit for 

 full work. A loose box is the proper place for such a horse. 

 Then a loose box, when properly contrived, separated from 

 the stable, is a convenient place for a horse having an infec- 

 tious disease ; and it is the safest place for those that ob- 

 stinately persist in breaking loose. 



Loose boxes vary in size from ten to sixteen feet square. 

 They are too small at ten feet, and rather cold at sixteen. It 

 is a very convenient loose box at fourteen feet square. It is 

 better larger than smaller. It should be well paved, the floor 

 inclining a little from all sides toward a grating in the centre, 

 is better to have the floor slightly inclining to the back of 

 stable, and a gutter running its whole length two inches 

 deep and six inches wide, to carry off the urine to a cess- 

 pool under cover outside. All the effluvia may be retained in 

 this by throwing charcoal or peat earth into the cess-pool, to 

 the depth of two feet or so, and removing it with the urine 

 when, wanted for manure.] The walls should be boarded ; 

 the roof should be eight feet from the ground, neither more 



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