324 HORSE, SWINE AND POULTRY DISEASES 



DURATION OF PREGNANCY. 



Mares usually go about eleven months with young, though first 

 pregnancies often last a year. Foals have lived when born at the 

 three hundredth day, so with others carried till the four hundredth 

 day. With the longer pregnancies there is a greater probability of 

 male offspring. 



HYGIENE OP THE PREGNANT MARE. 



The pregnant mare should not be exposed to teasing by a young 

 and ardent stallion, nor should she be overworked or fatigued, par- 

 ticularly under the saddle or on uneven ground. Yet exercise is 

 beneficial to both mother and offspring, and in the absence of mod- 

 erate work the breeding mare should be kept in a lot where she can 

 take exercise at will. 



The food should be liberal, but not fattening oats, bran, sound 

 hay, and other foods rich in the principles which form flesh and bone 

 being especially indicated. All ailments that tend to indigestion 

 are to be especially avoided. Thus rank, aqueous, rapidly growing 

 grasses and other green food, partially ripe rye grass, millet, hun- 

 garian grass, vetches, peas, beans, or maize are objectionable, as is 

 overripe, fibrous, innutritions hay, or that which has been injured 

 and rendered musty by wet, or that which is infested with smut or 

 ergot. Food that tends to costiveness should be avoided. Water 

 given often, and at a temperature considerably above freezing, will 

 avoid the dangers of indigestion and abortion which result from tak- 

 ing too much ice-cold water at one time. Very cold or frozen food is 

 objectionable in the same sense. Severe surgical operations and 

 medicines that act violently on the womb, bowels, or kidneys are to 

 be avoided as being liable to cause abortion. Constipation should 

 be corrected, if possible, by bran mashes, carrots, or beets, seconded 

 by exercise, and if a medicinal laxative is required it should be olive 

 oil or other equally bland agent. 



The stall of the pregnant mare should not be too narrow, so as 

 to cramp her when lying down or to entail violent effort in getting 

 up, and it should not slope too much from the front backward, as 

 this throws the weight of the uterus back on the pelvis and en- 

 dangers abortion. Violent mental impressions are to be avoided, 

 for though the majority of mares are not affected thereby, yet a 

 certain number are so profoundly impressed that peculiarities and 

 distortions are entailed on the offspring. Hence, there is wisdom 

 shown in banishing particolored or objectionably tinted animals, 

 and those that show deformities or faulty conformation. Hence, too, 

 the importance of preventing prolonged acute suffering by the preg- 

 nant mare, as certain troubles of the eyes, feet, and joints in the foals 

 have been clearly traced to the concentration of the mother's mind 

 on corresponding injured organs in herself. Sire and dam alike 

 tend to reproduce their individual defects which predispose to disease, 

 but the dam is far more likely to perpetuate the evil in her progeny 

 which was carried while she was individually enduring severe suffer- 

 ing caused by such defects. Hence, an active bone spavin or ring- 

 bone, causing lameness, is more objectionable than that in which the 



