The Management of Light Horses 1 5 1 



new experience, struggles, bucks, and squeals like a young porker, 

 to the no small alarm and distress of the mare, and apparent banish- 

 ment of all sucking instinct from the foal. A newly-born foal being 

 forced to suck is perverseness typified; in some cases its lusty 

 struggles to escape from its would-be helper alternate with spells of 

 stolid sulking ; in others it will suck the assistants' fingers, buttons, 

 clothing, &c., ignoring the mare entirely, following the man round 

 the box, whinnying after him as though in fear of losing him. The 

 chief difficulty arises from the fact that to secure the teat and 

 swallow with any comfort the foal has to hold its head at right 

 angles to its body. Left to itself in its foraging for refreshments, it 

 will sooner or later discover the trick of it; but if distracted by a 

 fussy attendant trying to force its head into the necessary position, 

 it will stubbornly resist coercion, with the result that it is soon in 

 that frame of mind best described by the proverb: 'One man may 

 lead a horse to the water, but a dozen can't make him drink.' " 



There are cases, of course, in which it is imperative for the foal 

 to be helped, but they are happily few and far between. Some- 

 times a foal is weak and would exhaust himself unduly in his 

 endeavours to get his natural sustenance. In such a case a small 

 quantity of milk may be drawn from the mare, and the foal induced 

 to drink it by allowing it to suck the fingers placed in the milk. 

 But the sooner the mare and the foal each take up their allotted 

 parts the better for both of them. 



Then there is the case of the mare with her first foal. It 

 happens sometimes that a mare with her first foal is somewhat 

 awkward with it, and if it is weakly, as a first foal sometimes is, it 

 may require some assistance, and the mare and the foal will need 

 to be very closely watched for a few days. Whoever is responsible 

 should be sure that the foal is duly suckled. Strange as it may 

 appear, I have known instances where this apparently imperative 

 duty has been carelessly neglected, and sometimes with serious 

 results. 



It is essential to see early on that the foal's bowels are properly 

 moved. An old and favourite plan in my young days was to insert 

 a tallow candle up the fundament. It is not uncommon for some 

 hard faeces to be lodged just at the fundament of a newly-born 

 foal. These must be carefully looked for and removed or the foal 

 will surely die. 



Constipation and diarrhoea are the two most tiresome com- 

 plaints which trouble the young foal, and his attendant must look 

 out sharply for symptoms of both. In cases of constipation a 

 glycerine suppository may be inserted; or, if that should not have 



