218 BREEDING 



well-regulated work, and generous but careful treatment. In-foal mares 

 should, however, be guarded against severe exertion, such as drawing 

 heavy loads in deep ground or on hilly roads, or backing, or trotting at 

 fast pace, especially down hill, nor should they be made to undergo 

 long fasts or suffer fatigue. As pregnancy advances, and the calls of 

 the growing foetus on the nutritive resources of the dam become more 

 and more considerable, so should the amount of work demanded of her be 

 diminished, and the food-ration undergo suitable adjustment. To assert 

 that the observance of such details should be among the commonplaces 

 of every stud is only to suggest a state of things that, to say the least 

 of it, is far from universal, technical education notwithstanding. 



Stabling. — In the stable, pregnant mares should l)e provided with 

 plenty of room to permit them to lie down and extend themselves over 

 a good l)ed of soft litter. The Hoor of the stable should not slant too 

 much in a backward direction. When sejjarated by bails, their com- 

 panions should be quiet and free from vice. Breeding-mares, however, 

 never perhaps do better than when turned into the crew yard at night, 

 with a drv shed for protection fi'om the weather, and plenty of dry 

 litter, providing they are on good terms with each other. Our cold and 

 .changeable climate has often been urged against this exposure of working 

 animals, but experience teaches that, with an adequate food-supply, the 

 ■open yard is far more conducive to health than the atmosphere of the 

 average stable, which is usually made filthy by the studious exclusion 

 ■of outside air and the deliberate confinement of that which is within. 

 Moreover, the denizens of the open yard know nothing of those ex- 

 tremes of temperature, the sudden alternations of which are so fruitful of 

 tlisease; and while being at all times fitter for their work, they are also 

 much less susceptible to sickness than those which spend their nights in the 

 stuffy, filth-laden air of a stable deprived of all means of ventilation. 



When the weather permits, this kind of management allows of the 

 mare's being turned to grass for a few hours each day during the later 

 weeks of pregnancy, without the risk attaching to animals more closely 

 stabled. A bite of spring grass, before parturition, prepares for the more 

 complete change of food which is shortly to take place, and protects the 

 foal from those often fatal attacks of diarrhoea, which result when mares 

 are suddenly transferred from hard corn to pasture — from the close stable 

 to the open field. 



