Management and Feeding of Heavy Horses 121 



warm. When maize is cheap it is used in part with the oats; but 

 being more inclined to produce fat than to grow muscle, maize is 

 not to be recommended for growing colts. An improvement may 

 be made in the mash by adding about i lb. of the fine siftings of 

 linseed cake. Linseed cake, besides being valuable as food, is 

 useful in keeping the bowels kind and healthy, preventing consti- 

 pation, colic, and other stomach derangements. 



As hay is not always available on these arable farms, the bulky 

 food has to be got from the straw. In some parts of Scotland 

 bean straw is the favourite sort; it is chopped short, mixed with 

 bran and oats, and well scalded. After cooling it is given in a 

 sloppy state, the quantity of straw being used to lessen the con- 

 sumption of hay. When hay is not available some straw should 

 be given in the racks, besides what is chopped; nice oat straw is 

 the most suitable for filling the racks. Colts that are fed largely 

 on mashes like a change, and appreciate something they can chew. 

 Indeed, it is important they should have some long fodder which 

 they are obliged to masticate. If fed entirely on chopped food 

 and mashes, they are apt to get into the habit of bolting their 

 food without chewing it; their powers of mastication become im- 

 paired for want of use, their digestive powers are weakened, and 

 their health suffers accordingly. When fed on mashes they should 

 not be allowed to satisfy their appetite completely with the pail 

 food, but should be kept so that hunger will compel them to have 

 recourse to the racks during the long night, and to chew some of 

 the long fodder, whether it is hay or straw. Their loose box or 

 yard should be fitted up with rack as well as manger, the rack 

 being low down near the floor. It is not natural for a horse to 

 eat from overhead : in their wild state they eat off the ground ; so 

 that besides the lessened danger of getting chaff and dust in the 

 eyes, they can eat much more comfortably from a low rack. The 

 practice of giving the unthrashed sheaves of oats to the colts is 

 adopted on some farms. It is rather a rough-and-ready method 

 of feeding, by which the quantity of corn used can only be guessed 

 at, and is a practice that can scarcely be entrusted to boys or 

 unobservant workmen. Of course where the farmer himself or 

 some careful horseman undertakes the work, one who can estimate 

 pretty accurately the quantity of corn used, can watch results in 

 the thriving of the colts, and can guard against waste, the practice 

 will work well, and has a good deal to recommend it. It saves a 

 lot of labour in thrashing, chopping, mixing, and scalding; it also 

 compels the colts to use their teeth, and it thus conduces to a much 

 healthier and more thorough mastication of the food. Of course 



