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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



For the New England Farmer. 



COLTS. 



Friend Brown : — My regard for that noble an- 

 imal, the horse, leads me to fully endorse the good 

 practical hints of your correspondent, '_'M. H. C," 

 upon raising colts. But an important item has es- 

 caped his notice, namely,— cleanliness, as regards 

 the pen, which has much to do with their feet, and 

 consequently, their usefulness in after life. 



The feet of a colt are supposed to be tender, 

 spongy and susceptible, as compared with an old 

 horse ; now, suppose the colt-pen to be a winter's 

 accumulation of filthy droppings, and never to be 

 cleaned out till planting time — with an occasional 

 littering of straw for decency's sake. Very soon, fer- 

 mentation, heat, and almost fire, is generated in this 

 hot-bed, so ignorantly, yet so kindly prepared for 

 the colt. His feet, or body are in constant contact. 

 If he lies down, he burns; if he stands, his feet are 

 absorbing powerful ammonial gases — disease is 

 taking hold ; the young hoof begins to grow dry, 

 hard and horny,— ring-bones begin to clasp the 

 ankles— the joints stiffen, and by the time the foot 

 is ready for the shoe, he is oftentimes crippled 

 and of little value. The pungency of these gases, 

 must be hurtful to the lungs as well as the feet. 

 When children are born with corns on their toes, 

 we shall beheve colts are born with diseased feet — 

 not till then. While a calf at five weeks old is 

 worth but ten dollars, the promising colt may be 

 valued at one hundred dollars — take good care of 

 that colt. 



Mr. Editor, I write from experience upon this 

 matter, as many of your readers know. I spoiled 

 two horses, and nearly the third one, by allowing i 

 them to stand, month after month, upon theii own 

 filth, well littered down to keep them clean. My 

 motives were kind, but my practice was treacher- 

 ously wrong ; "Old Fanny" was rapidly cripphng 

 upon her hot bedding of manure, but was saved in 

 time, by substituting a hard plank floor. A French 

 writer put me right ; he said, half the_ horses, old 

 and young, are ruined by this practice. _ A mo- 

 ment's reflection convinces one. Now give the 

 colt a hard clean floor, (and the old horses too.) — 

 It expands the hoof, hardens and preparesit for 

 after service. It would be about as convenient to 

 get the butter out of a dog's throat, as to make 

 some farmers lielieve this hardjloor doctrine — yet 

 it is indisputably true. H. Poor. 



Brooklyn, L. L, Jlpnl, 1856. 

 P. S. I take strong ground against Solomon Steele, 

 Esq., of Derby Line, in his treatment of colts. He 

 says, "I never allow a colt to stand upon a hard 

 floor before he is two years old, as I believe the prac- 

 tice to be prejudicial to the formation of good 

 feet." In the foregoing communication — written 

 two weeks since — I had anticipated Mr. S. on this 

 very point. But with all due deference, if his plan 

 is to keep the colt bedded down, standing upon his 

 droppings, I should expect a contracted instead of 

 an expanded hoof, superinduced by standing upon 

 heated offal, the young feet absorbing, drying, be- 

 ing naturally feverish. If the young colt never 

 r.inges when he gallops over the frozen ground, 

 why keep his feet submerged and softened by his 

 filth at the risk of inoculating him with disease ? — 

 Will not a hard floor better prepare and spread the 

 young foot for hard roads and pacing stones, than 

 standing upon a soft substance ? If an old horse 



can be crippled in one winter, how long would it 

 take to ruin a colt under the same circumstances ? 



In conversation some years since with Mr. H., of 

 Belfast, Maine, I named the circumstance of near- 

 ly ruining my third horse with this mistaken kind- 

 ness. He instantly replied, "I always buy the best 

 horses to be found, but they become diseased in the 

 feet, soon after I get them ; I keep them standing 

 upon their manure, well bedded down, and now I 

 am convinced of my error." 



This is a subject of vast importance, and I hope 

 it will be thoroughly discussed, by persons of expe- 

 rience and scientific attainments, as it regards the 

 pathology and diseases of the horse. If it is mal- 

 practice that has made so many tender-footed hors- 

 es, let us look to it. 



REARING CALVES. 



BY F. HOLBROOK. 



Take the calf from its dam when a few days or 

 a week old, according to the condition of the cow's 

 l)ag, and learn it to drink new milk, warm from 

 the cow, feeding it thus twice a day till four or six 

 weeks old. Then begin quite gradually to lessen 

 the quantity of new milk, adding, in place of_ that 

 taken away, an equal measure of skimmed milk — 

 the milk, previous to skimming, having stood about 

 twelve hours, and, before it is given to the calf, 

 having been warmed to the temperature of the new 

 milk. So graduate the reduction of the new and 

 the addition of the skimmed miik, that the latter 

 shall constitute the entire mess for the calf when it 

 arrives at the age of eight or nine weeks. When 

 the calf is five or six weeks old, give it a few dry 

 oats, say a moderate handful daily, and increase a 

 little at a time, till at and after ten weeks of age 

 the calf shall receive about a pint per day ; also, at 

 the age of five weeks, begin to feed a little nice fine 

 hay. When the calf is ten weeks old, the milk it 

 receives may be that Avhich has stood longer than 

 twelve hours before being skimmed ; also at and 

 after this age, the quantity of milk may be gradu- 

 ally lessened, and water substituted for the milk 

 taken away, so that when the calf is twelve or four- 

 teen weeks' old, the milk shall be wholly withdrawn, 

 and the calf shall receive oats, hay and water, or 

 shall be turned off" to good pasturage. 



Thus managed, the calf will never know when it 

 was weaned from milk — will have no season of re- 

 pining and falling away in flesh, or remaining sta- 

 tionary in growth — will have no troublesome habit, 

 after the time for weaning, of sucking cows that 

 may chance to be in the pasture or yard with it, 

 and will be quite as large, plump and symmetrical 

 when a yearling, as though it had been reared by 

 the more expensive mode of sucking a cow. Dur- 

 ing the winter preceding the period when the calf 

 becomes a yearling, it should be fed on the best of 

 fine hay, with one quart of dry oats, or six to eight 

 quarts of mashed roots, daily. It is not a good 

 practice to feed meal to young calves, either before 

 or after weaning, the meal being too heating, injur- 

 ing digestion and bringing on purging, and worse 

 still, if fed freely, causing the calf to grow out of 

 shape, picked and scrawny. It is also difficult to 

 rear a nice well-sbaped calf on gruel, because of 

 the meal of which the gruel is in part made, and 

 because the quality for forming well-developed bone 

 and a well-shaped body, which milk eminently pos- 

 sesses, is too much lacking in the gruel 



