Corn a.vd Water. 



473 



Atvvood Bignall, of Croydon, who used to have a hundred hunters in his " Derby stables," 

 belonging to subscribers hunting from London — rn-my of them with those flyers the Surrey 

 Stag-hounds — used to say, " I leave my gentlemen to get the flesh off their horses ; " but this 

 was hard flesh, for nothing but first-rate condition could carry a stag-hunter up and down the 

 Surrey Hills; and no Melton stud-groom ever turned out hunters more fit. 



Digby Collins' recommendation of five feeds a day does not meet with universal acceptance; 

 four feeds a day are the rule in very good stables. But there is one indisputable rule — a 

 horse should never have more than he will finish at one time ; he must always leave a clean 

 manger. For this reason delicate feeders must have little and often ; but delicate feeders 

 have no business in the stable of a man whose horses are expected to be useful servants, not 

 mere lu.xuries. 



The horse of the fox-hunter will frequently be twelve hours under saddle without any 

 food, except what he may get at a roadside inn. In fashionable counties, on the days that 

 the hounds are out, every public-house with a stable prepares gruel, and gets ready for 

 the custom of stray sportsmen ; but in wild countries you may travel mile after mile, 

 since coaching and posting disappeared, without meeting any better accommodation than a 

 cow-house. 



Under these circumstances the question is, whether hunters would or would not bear fasting 

 better if they were not fed so frequently. There is a good deal to be said on both sides of 

 the question — so much that I shall not venture to give my own opinion, but content myself 

 with quoting the following letter, signed "O.C.," which appeared in The Field. 



" For many years I have accustomed my hunters to only three feeds per day — viz., first 

 at 6 a.m., second at noon (only a small piece of hay), and the third at 6 p.m., so that on 

 hunting-days my horses only miss the small feed in the middle of the day. Since I have 

 adopted only three feeds per day, my hunters not only look fit to go, but after a hard day 

 come home cheerily, and feed well. They are frequently out of their stable twelve hours, 

 having usually long distances to covert." If the feeds are three, the horses must have the 

 same quantity of corn and beans as if their feeds were divided into four. 



Where hunters stand in loose boxes, as they should if possible, they are, if gross feeders, 

 apt to eat part of their straw litter in the night, if they are not, like racehorses, muzzled. 

 There are objections to the muzzle, and the difficulty may be got over by substituting a deep 

 layer of sawdust or spent tan for straw. The hunter should have his usual supply of water 

 to sip with his food on the night before hunting. 



When hunters are wound up to high condition, if their daily exercise is stopped by a 

 heavy fall of snow, or any other cause, they must be immediately put on bran mashes, most 

 of their corn and all their beans stopped, otherwise the effect of large feeds of stimulating 

 food is almost sure to produce attacks of inflammation, ending in roaring, ophthalmia, fever 

 of the feet, and a host of diseases which will be still more dangerous if, to keep their coats 

 sleek and shining, the stables are deprived of supplies of fresh air, and turned into the groom's 

 paradise — a sort of hothouse. 



If a hunter has to walk for an hour to cover-side, a bucket of water an hour before he 

 starts will do him more good than harm. On the way to cover, after walking about half an 

 hour, he should be taken into a stable to tempt him to stale. If this is not done, when he 

 gets to cover-side he is likely to get erected, and not able to stale. This applies more to 

 geldings than to mares. It also applies to horses doing a long journey in harness. In the 

 field, in the inter\als which are constantly occurring between hounds finding and running, he 

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