HOVEL AND PADDOCK 183 



very unsafe, 1 for the mare as well as her foal are very apt to get cast in 

 them, with a serious or fatal injury as the result. Posts and rails answer 

 well enough, where timber is plentiful, but, in the long run, they are 

 expensive from the necessity for constant repairs. Banks with thorn 

 hedges on the top are the very best of all means for enclosing the paddqcks, 

 and are even better than stone walls, which, however, are excellent for 

 the purpose if they have the soil raised against their bases, without which 

 the foal is liable to slip up against their surface, and thus sometimes 

 blemish his knees. There is a great difference of opinion as to the size 

 necessary for the paddocks, and the number of mares which should be 

 allowed in each. In some well-conducted stud-farms, the enclosures are 

 very large, and a dozen, or even as many as eighteen, mares and their 

 foals are turned out together as soon as the weather permits, and the spring 

 grass grows high enough. In others, as at the Hampton Court and Middle 

 Park establishments, the paddocks are each only calculated to take three 

 or four mares and their foals ; and the yearlings, also, are never allowed 

 to exceed four in any one paddock. Mr. Martin, the clever and experienced 

 manager of the first-named stud, was of opinion that colts should have 

 room enough to gallop, and thus early accustom their joints and sinews to 

 bear the strains which they must, some time or other, be subjected to. On 

 the other hand, the argument is held that in a small paddock the foal 

 gallops quite as much as in the larger one, and puts his joints to the strain 

 in stopping himself at the corners, whilst there is less injury from other 

 accidental causes, such as kicks and the jamming of a lot together in a 

 narrow gateway. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the latter 

 plan is the best, for experience shows that a well-fed foal will gallop daily, 

 for hours together, even in a two-acre paddock. 



AT FOALING TIME each mare must have a separate hovel or loose-box, 

 but as, practically, it is found that she always gives some few hours' notice 

 of her approaching parturition, it is the custom to bring her into the close 

 neighbourhood of the house of the stud-groom at night, so that he may be 

 at hand to render her assistance, if necessary. Any loose-box answers for 

 that purpose, if it does not open to a warm stable, which would render it 

 too hot for an animal which has been for months exposed to the open air. 

 But after foaling the mare will also require a hovel to herself for six weeks 

 or two months, when the foal will be strong enough to take care of itself 

 in running among other mares. Indeed, at all times, the mares should at 

 night be in separate hovels, even when during the day they run in the 

 same paddock with two or three others. This hovel should be about twelve 

 to fifteen feet long, and not less than ten feet wide. The height may easily 

 be too great, because in the early spring the weather is often so severe that 

 the mare cannot impart sufficient heat to a very large volume of air. From 

 eight to nine feet will therefore be ample, the former being well suited to 

 the larger area which I have given above, and the latter to the smaller. 

 It is a very common plan, when economy is much studied, to build four 

 hovels back to back, at the angles formed by four small runs, by which a 



1 A special instinct is developed in animals bred upon marshes surrounded by ditches, 

 and the foals seldom come to grief if born on the spot, while hill-bred animals brought on to 

 the lowlands are extremely likely to get in the water, especially during thunderstorms. We 

 have known farmers in the Cheddar Valley to throw purchased stock into the ditches in 

 order to show them the danger. 



