1 68 Management ajid Treatment of the Horse. 



STOMACH STAGGERS. 



This complaint, like the former, is often at- 

 tributable to acrid substances taken into the 

 stomach when the animal is in an exhausted 

 state from long continued labour. It is most 

 frequently met with in the farm or cart horse, 

 and is often the result of overfeeding, especially if 

 the horse is fed upon food of bad quality. Farmers 

 often resort to the false economy of selling all 

 their good hay and corn, keeping only the worst 

 for home consumption, and then are dreadfully 

 disappointed when they find their stock in an 

 unhealthy condition, and attribute the cause to 

 everything but the right, viz., their own foolish 

 greed, grasping the shadow and losing the sub- 

 stance. Careless servants will too often neglect 

 their horses, and afterwards, when food is placed 

 before them while they are ravenously hungry, 

 they swallow it rapidly and in too large a quantity 

 without being properly masticated, consequently 

 it swells in the stomach and stretches it far 

 beyond its natural capacity ; its action being 

 thereby impaired, the brain is unduly acted 

 upon, and giddiness and drowsiness induced, 

 which occasion staggering. Too often the horse 

 is kept short of water while abundance of food 

 is placed before it, and instead of giving a little 

 water before feeding and a small quantity of 

 food at first to assist the animal .in converting 

 its food into a pulp and facilitating the operation 

 of digestion, without a judicious quantity of 

 water is given to the exhausted horse with its 



