380 TEMPERATURE. 



" In a well drained, well paved, well ventilated and cleanly kept stable 

 the temperature may generally be maintained at from fifty to sixty degrees. 

 Ill drained, ill paved, badly ventilated or dirty stables cannot with safety be 

 kept as warm as those of which the sanitary condition is more favorable. 



" Many varying circumstances, however, of situation, whether bleak or 

 sheltered, of thickness of walls, of ceiling or absence of ceiling, of rooms 

 overhead, of adjacent buildings and such-like considerations, must modify 

 any general rules as to temperature. Some regard, too, should be paid to 

 the state of the external atmosphere. With the thermometer, for instance, 

 at zero out of doors, a stable would be injudiciously warm at from fifty to 

 sixty degrees, although that temperature may be taken as a fair average for 

 most seasons of the year." — Sir F. Fitzwygram, ^^ Stable Management,^' 

 p. 89. 



" So much depends upon the kind of horse and the work he has to do, 

 that is to say, whether he is much exposed to the cold or not, that no rule 

 can be laid down which is applicable to all stables, but I believe it may be 

 asserted that none should be above sixty degrees, or below fifty degrees, if it 

 can be avoided. I have often known horses stand severe rattling for months 

 together, while standing in a stable which was so cold as to make their coats 

 as rough as badgers, but when removed to warmer quarters they have at 

 once gone ' all to pieces,' their legs or feet becoming inflamed from miss- 

 ing the refrigerating effect of cool air after their daily work. On the whole, 

 therefore, for the private gentleman's stable, including those for hunters, 

 hacks and carriage horses, I should advise a regular temperature to be pre- 

 served as near fifty degrees Fahrenheit as possible." — Stonehenge, "Every 

 Horse Owner's Cyclopcedia,''' p. 201. 



" It is not so generally known as it should be, that the return to a hot 

 stable is quite as dangerous as the change from a heated atmosphere to a 

 cold and biting air. Many a horse that has travelled without harm over a 

 bleak country has been suddenly seized with inflammation and fever when 

 he has, immediately at the end of his journey, been surrounded with heated 

 and foul air. It is the sudden change of temperature, whether from heat 

 to cold or from cold to heat, that does the mischief, and yearly destroys 

 thousands of horses." — William Youatt, " The Horse,''' p. 124. 



