194 



Management of the Horse. 



Vol. XII. 



every year. His system of ventilation, how- 

 ever, like many other salutary innovations, 

 was at first strongly resisted. Much evil 

 was predicted; but after a time, diseases 

 that used to dismount whole troops, almost 

 entirely disappeared from the army. 



A hot stable has, in the mind of the groom, 

 been long connected with a glossy coat. The 

 latter, it is thought, cannot be obtained with- 

 out the former. 



To this we should reply, that in winter a 

 thin, glossy coat is not desirable. Nature 

 gives to every animal a warmer clothing 

 when the cold weather approaches. The 

 horse — the agricultural horse especially — 

 acquires a thicker and a lengthened coat, in 

 order to defend him from the surrounding 

 cold. Man puts on an additional and a 

 warmer covering, and his comfort is in- 

 creased and his health preserved by it. He 

 who knows anything of the farmer's horse, 

 or cares about his enjoyment, will not object 

 to a coat a little longer and a little rough- 

 ened when the wintry wind blows bleak. 

 The coat, however, needs not to be so long 

 as to be unsightly; and warm clothing, even 

 in a cool stable, will, with plenty of honest 

 grooming, keep the hair sufficiently smooth 

 and glossy to satisfy the most fastidious. 

 The overheated air of a close stable saves 

 much of this grooming, and therefore the 

 idle attendant unscrupulously sacrifices the 

 health and safety of the horse. 



If the stable is close, the air will not only 

 be hot, but foul. The breathing of every 

 animal contaminates it; and when, in the 

 course of the night, with every aperture 

 stopped, it passes again and again through 

 the lungs, the blood cannot undergo its pro- 

 per and healthy change ; digestion will not 

 be so perfectly performed, and all the func- 

 tions of life are injured. Let the owner of 

 a valuable horse think of his passing twenty 

 or twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours 

 in this debilitating atmosphere ! Nature does 

 wonders in enabling every animal to accom- 

 modate itself to the situation in which it is 

 placed, and the horse that lives in the stable- 

 oven suffers less from it than would scarcely 

 be conceived possible ; but he does not, and 

 cannot, possess the power and the hardihood 

 which he would acquire under other circum- 

 stances. 



The air of the improperly close and heated 

 stable is still farther contaminated by the 

 urine and dung, which rapidly ferment there, 

 and give out stimulating and unwholesome 

 vapours. When a person first enters an ill- 

 managed stable, and especially early in the 

 morning, he is annoyed, not only by the heat 

 of the. confined air, but by a pungent smell, 

 resembling hartshorn; and can he be sur- 



prised at the inflammation of the eyes, and 

 the chronic cough, and the disease of the 

 lungs, by which the animal, who has been 

 all night shut up in this vitiated atmosphere, 

 is often attacked ; or if glanders and farcy 

 should occasionally break out in such stables J 

 [t has been ascertained by chemical experi- 

 ment, that the urine of the horse contains in 

 it an exceedingly large quantity of harts- 

 horn ; and not only so, but that, influenced 

 by the heat of a crowded stable, and possibly 

 by other decompositions that are going for- 

 ward at the same time, this ammoniacal va- 

 pour begins to be rapidly given out almost 

 immediately after the urine is voided. 



When disease begins to appear among 

 the inhauitants of these ill-ventilated places, 

 is it wonderful that it should rapidly spread 

 among them, and that the plague-spot should 

 be, as it were, placed on the door of such a 

 stable? When distemper appears in spring 

 or in autumn, it is in very many cases to be 

 traced to such a pest-house. It is peculiarly 

 fatal there. The horses belonging to a small 

 establishment, and rationally treated, have 

 it comparatively seldom, or have it lightly; 

 but among the inmates of a crowded stable 

 it is sure to display itself, and there it ia 

 most fatal. The experience of every vete- 

 rinary surgeon, and of every large proprie- 

 tor of horses, will corroborate this statement. 

 Agriculturists should bring to their stables 

 the common sense which directs them in 

 the usual concerns of life, and should begin, 

 when their pleasures and their property are 

 so much at stake, to assume that authority 

 and to enforce that obedience, to the lack of 

 which is to be attributed the greater part of 

 bad stable-management and horse disease. 

 Of nothing are we more certain than that 

 the majority of the maladies of the horse, 

 and those of the worst and most fatal charac- 

 ter, are directly or indirectly to be attributed 

 to a deficient supply of air, cruel exaction of 

 work, and insufficient or bad fare. Each of 

 these evils is to be dreaded — each is, in a 

 manner, watching for its prey; and when 

 they are combined, more than half of the 

 inmates of the stable are often swept 

 away. 



Every stable should possess within itself a 

 certain degree of ventilation. The cost of 

 this would be trifling, and its saving in the 

 preservation of valuable animals may be im- 

 mense. The apertures need not be large, 

 and the whole may be so contrived that no 

 direct current of air shall fall on the horse. 



A gentleman's stable should never be 

 without a thermometer. The temperature 

 should seldom exceed seventy degrees in 

 the summer, or sink below forty or fifty de- 

 grees in the winter. — Youatt''s Horse. 



