580 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



on a noble animal, but reduces her power to furnish milk to het 

 foal, and the milk is neither so healthful nor abundant as it 

 would have been if the mare had rested one month. The full 

 flow of milk does not come until the dam has wholly recovered 

 from the labor of giving birth to her young. 



Too many of our colts raised on the farm are stunted at the 

 start by too early working the mare. The strength of mare and 

 foal are over-taxed, and the supply of milk reduced and injured 

 in quality, while the labor of following the dam, day in and day 

 out, in the field or after the wagon, makes a demand for more 

 and better milk. The practice of working mares up to and soon 

 after foaling-time has reduced many a fine colt to the rank and 

 form of a scrub at one year old. A colt stunted before that age 

 never recovers from it. The farmer who has a good mare and 

 breeds her to a good horse, and pays from twenty to fifty or one 

 hundred dollars service money, can not afford to sink the chance 

 of his colt's growth and development for a few days' work of the 

 mare when she is weak. 



The object of breeding the mare is a good colt. The time 

 and money spent to secure it must not now be sacrificed by un- 

 wise use of the dam. A reasonable care now that the dam and 

 foal are properly fed and nourished, will save loss and insure 

 gain. The colt must be fed at the udder of the dam, and she 

 must be fed generously at the hand of the owner, to keep up 

 her strength and a full supply of wholesome milk for the colt. 

 Once overheating of the mare deranges milk secretions, and we 

 soon see the colt showing the effects in his dullness or staring 

 coat, or diarrhoea. 



Care and Feeding of Colts. Farmers busy with their 

 growing and ripened crops, from May to December, are apt to 

 turn the mares and colts off to shift for themselves. Many 

 mares fail to give enough milk to properly nourish the foal, and 

 it becomes stunted and makes an inferior animal, undersized for 

 any useful purpose, and it is a scrub of little value. This may 

 be avoided generally by liberal feed of the dam and early teach- 

 ing the foal to eat with the dam. If the box or trough in which 

 the mare is fed be on the ground, or set so low as that the colt 



