156 The Management of Light Horses 



foal feeds should be scrupulously clean. Too much care cannot be 

 taken in this respect. 



In a few days the mare and foal will forget each other, and then 

 the foal may be turned out to grass. He should, however, be 

 helped with some hand food, for this is a very critical period of a 

 foal's life, and it is possible for him to lose now what he will never 

 be able to recover. The Hon. E. Coke recommends, as a ration 

 at once good and cheap, 2 lb. boiled barley, 2 lb. of bruised oats, 

 and 2 lb, chaff per day, which will cost about 6d. It is always 

 advisable to have another foal for company, and if there is only 

 one foal on a place another should be bought. Horses like the 

 company of their fellows and do best when they have it. Care, 

 however, should be taken not to turn the foals together till they 

 have lost their desire to suck. It is very injurious when foals take 

 to sucking each other. Foals should not be put amongst older 

 horses if it can be avoided. Certainly they should not run in a 

 fold yard with them. 



THE CARE OF YOUNG HORSES 



One thing which is frequently neglected is the care of the feet 

 of young horses. A close observer, even at a good horse show, 

 cannot fail to notice the number of horses that turn their feet — one 

 or both of them — in a little, which is called "pigeon-toed", or out 

 a little, which is called "splay-footed". In some cases this is a 

 malformation which cannot be avoided, but not infrequently it is 

 the result of neglect and the overloading of the growing limbs 

 of a young horse. If you take a larch pit-prop and allow too big 

 a weight to accumulate on the top of it, you will find that it will 

 bulge outwards or inwards. Similarly, if the weak soft joints of 

 a foal or young horse are weighted with an overgrown body — 

 if the limbs are not able to bear the weight superimposed upon 

 them — the joints must point either one way or the other to get the 

 necessary relief Then negligence comes in. I wonder how many 

 young horses in England have their feet regularly dressed. Yet 

 it is essential for the horse's future wellbeing that the feet should 

 be regularly dressed, and in such a way as to put right any dis- 

 position there may be to stand out of the exact line of correctness. 

 The dressing should be commenced in his early foalhood and 

 continued till he is able to wear a shoe. It should be done also 

 at frequent intervals, and regularly, or it will not have the desired 

 effect. 



If a horse stands correctly, a plumb line dropped from his fore- 



