Feed and Care of the Morse. 317 



A fair alloTvance of grain for the colt, measured in oats, is as 



follows: 



Up to one year of age, from 2 to 3 pounds. 

 From one to two years of age, 4 to 5 pounds. 

 From two to three years of age, 7 to 8 pounds. 



While an ample allowance of such roughage as hay, straw 

 and stover should be supplied, it should always be less than the 

 animal would eat had it free access to this provender. The 

 colt, like the mature horse, should not be allowed all the rough 

 age it can consume, for such over-supply tends to gorge the 

 digestive tract with inert matter, and may work lasting injury. 



Liberal feeding must be counterbalanced by an abundance of 

 outdoor exercise. In no other way can colts be ruined so surely 

 and so permanently as by liberal feeding and close confinement. 

 Each day from three to ten hours should be spent in the open air, 

 according to the condition of the weather and other circumstances. 



499. Rearing by hand. — It occasionally happens that the foal 

 must be reared artificially or perish. If the young thing has 

 never received any of its mother's milk, the bowels should first 

 of all be moved by a dose of castor oil. Cow's milk, to which at 

 least one-fourth its volume of water, together with some sugar, 

 has been added, (429) makes a fair substitute for mare's milk 

 and should be given at blood temperature. Gruels may be made 

 by boiling beans or peas and removing the skins by passing the 

 pulp through a sieve. Oil meal made into a jelly by boiling, and 

 shorts prepared in the same way, are excellent for the motlierless 

 foal. 



500. Cow's milk for foal feeding. — Cow's milk is often used with 

 advantage in feeding foals. Foals suffering from distemper can- 

 not always take solid food satisfactorily and may be nurtured on 

 cow's milk. The foal may be taught to drink milk by pouring it 

 upon the grain feed; the young thing eats the moistened feed, 

 and by tipping the pan it soon learns to drink the separated milk. 



At the Iowa Station, i Wilson and Curtiss fed whole milk, and 

 later separator skim milk, with satisfactory results, to imported 

 Percheron, Shire and French Coach weanling fillies shortly after 



1 Bui. 18. 



