Feed and Care of the Horse. 316 



tlirown together become companions, their friendship being very- 

 marked, and proving beneficial at weaning time. In teaching 

 tliem to eat, two men enter the paddock each with a pan in 

 which are some dry crushed oats. Each foal wears a halter; over 

 the back of the animal a quarter- inch rope, made into a large 

 loop, is passed, this loop falling to the hock joints and passing 

 up along each side of the body to the withers, whence a single 

 cord passes through a ring in the halter so as to be held by the 

 same hand that holds the leading strap. With rope and lead 

 strap in one hand and a pan of crushed oats in the other, the 

 attendant serves the foal with feed, gently inducing it to move 

 forward, from time to time, by pulling on the halter and drawing 

 ©n the rope at the same time; the loop tightening about the but- 

 tocks impels the foal forward, preventing all tendency to pull at the 

 halter and teaching the young thing that when the groom tightens 

 on the lead strap it is to move ahead. The handling of two 

 foals at the same time when companions, and while still with 

 their dams, makes each more fearless and less restive than if alone. 

 In a short time the foal is halter-broken, and can be led about the 

 paddock without grain being held before it. 



497. Weaning the foal. — The foal is weaned when five or six 

 months old. The operation calls for good judgment and careful 

 attention, but is not difficult if the preliminaries have been 

 properly carried out. Having given Splan's method of teaching 

 the foal to eat grain, we will follow him through the period of 

 weaning. 1 "Now we put on the halters and keep them on, 

 leading the foals more or less while weaning them. Leave them 

 in their boxes, two or three together, several days, and have the 

 boxes open into a nice grass paddock. Let them run out and in, 

 give them oats mixed with bran and sorghum cut up fine, and in 

 a few days more turn them out in the fields away from their dams, 

 where there is plenty of grass and water, and a large trough with 

 feed in it constantly. They have been in the habit of taking 

 milk a great many times a day, and they need food just as often. 

 The best way is to keep plenty of mixed food for them, using 

 cracked corn and oats, also unthrashed oats run through a cutting- 



' Loc. cit, pp. 424-5. 



