THE HORSE BREEDING. 577 



ing food in great quantities does not furnish strength or milk. 

 In the winter she should have warm, well ventilated quarters, 

 free from the vitiated atmosphere that poisons life spent in 

 damp, badly kept stables. 



From forty-four to fifty-six weeks the mare may carry her 

 foal, and in all this time the system is gradually preparing for 

 the supreme effort of her life, in producing another of her kind. 

 The intelligent man should see that her condition is made com- 

 fortable and her food wholesome and abundant. The mare in 

 foal loves quiet and freedom from the annoyance of other 

 horses. When her time is near say two to four weeks before 

 foaling she should be placed in a box-stall, or, if the weather 

 be pleasant, in a paddock with grass, where she can have quiet 

 and move about at will. 



How to Know a Mare is in Foal. If the mare re- 

 fuse to t-ake the horse a second or third time, we usually 

 conclude she is in foal. If she be tried on the eighth or ninth 

 day after dropping her foal, she will usually take the horse, 

 and not need another service. If on the twenty-first day she 

 decline to take the horse, the conclusion is, generally, that she 

 is in foal. 



But we may notice her appearance, and know from this : If 

 she be "not in foal, the lips of the vagina will be moist, bright, 

 and of a florid appearance," says the Complete Stock Doctor, " and 

 with a fresh drop of fluid at the lower part, which, being 

 touched, will incline to extend. If she be gravid (in foal), the 

 surface of the vagina will be dry and of a dirty brown or rusty 

 color, while the drop that was before clear fluid will now be 

 dark and brown. After the third month, the belly will begin 

 to swell, and at the end of the fifth or sixth month the move- 

 ments of the foetus may be seen by watching; or by standing 

 the mare at rest and pressing up sharply in the flank, with the 

 thumb and fore-finger closed, the fretus may be distinctly felt 

 by the rebound." 



The Period of Gestation. The average period for the 

 mare to carry her foal is forty-four weeks, or eleven months. 

 We have known this period to extend frequently to fifty weeks. 



37 



