Management and Feeding of Heavy Horses i i i 



first mate be a horse of superior excellence. The practice of 

 working the brood mares is common on nearly all arable farms. 

 Farmers, as a rule, cannot afford to keep the mares idle. Yet in 

 some of our best studs, where valuable mares are kept solely for 

 breeding or showing, they are never compelled to put their heads 

 through a collar; and, indeed, in some districts where most of the 

 land is in grass and the horse work of the farm is light, many 

 tenant farmers allow their brood mares to run idle all the year. 

 The expense of keeping them is very small, and if they rear a colt 

 every year, each mare is reckoned to be as profitable as a dozen or 

 twenty ewes would be. They also breed more regularly, and have 

 fewer mishaps than those that are highly fed and hard worked. 



A curious problem, however, arises out of the practice, viz. 

 whether horses which are bred for the heavy work of the farm 

 and the streets will continue to inherit their powers of draught, 

 their staying powers, their adaptability for the work, and their 

 hardiness when descended from some generations of ancestors 

 living a life of ease and luxury — ancestors who do not know what 

 it is to do a day's work? Will the descendants of these ancestors 

 lose the power and grit requisite for a hard day's work through 

 being descended from a race of idlers? It will not pay to sacrifice 

 stamina, ability, and willingness to work for the sake of size, 

 symmetry, and all the other requisites of the show ring. We often 

 observe the effeminating effects of idleness and luxury in the 

 human race; whilst a life of pampering has a degenerating effect 

 on most domesticated animals. 



CARE OF THE FOAL 



It has been observed also that there is sometimes a difficulty in 

 getting well-kept mares to breed, and that the more highly-bred 

 members of the stud are the shyest breeders. It is important, 

 therefore, that when a mare is once successfully started in the 

 business of breeding, and is safely in foal, no pains should be 

 spared to give the future progeny every opportunity of developing 

 on the right lines. If the mare is not required for the work of the 

 farm, and can be turned out to roam the pastures without shoes, 

 she will not require much attention until her time of foaling is 

 approaching. The pastures need not be of a rich and fattening 

 nature, as pregnant mares will maintain their condition during 

 summer and autumn on very middling grass, unless they are suck- 

 ling a foal. The field, however, should have no open ditches, no 

 boggy or marshy spots. If two or more are grazing together they 



