t Foals and ^'eakli.vgs. Treatment of. 555 



place is at hand, such as a deep ditch, pit, or the like, for to such places marcs immediately 

 turn when their labours commence. 



Immediately after foaling the mare should be removed, with the foal, to a well-littered 

 box, and have moist mash of bran and beans, with a large supply of water at hand, and all 

 other liberal, but not heating, diet. If she should be very weak, there is no better food than 

 bean-flour, linseed gruel, and old ale, given warm (Query, port wine). If she prove an in- 

 different milker, the best new milk should be given after the foal has dried its dam. A soda- 

 water bottle is a convenient feeder (no doubt the india-rubber apparatus used for babies could 

 be adapted to a receptacle of appropriate size). 



WEANING AND CASTRATING. 



Colts should be weaned early in October (if half-bred, and the mare not required for work, 

 they may run with her until two years old), and, after weaning, turned into a piece of rich pasture 

 (Mr. D. Collins recommends fat clover, but many foals have been killed by eating clover heads, 

 which produce constipation) for six or eight days, at the expiration of which they will have 

 gained flesh, and be ready for a feed morning and evening of finely crushed beans (Query, oats), 

 bran, and hay chaff, in home paddocks, with a good bite of grass. 



Colts should be separated from the fillies at this period, unless they are castrated, and, by 

 precaution, the condition of both will be materially improved. 



Colts should be castrated in April, or at the end of May, after which operation they 

 should have one hour's walking exercise every day, to prevent swelling and inflammation, and 

 no heating food given them — bran mashes and hay will be best — and as soon as they are all 

 right they may be put to grass again. Colts castrated in the cold season of the year are likely 

 to have permanently a rough coat. If it is worth while to breed it is worth while to keep 

 the produce in fleshy, healthy condition until the time comes for breaking. 



Hunting colts should be kept in roomy dry straw-yards during the winter, with a plentiful 

 supply of clean water always at hand. They should all be tied up to feed, or they will rob 

 each other of their corn. During the winter that a colt turns three years old, before putting 

 him into the breaker's hands, he should be regularly dressed and handled every morning by 

 the man who feeds him. His feet should be attended to from the first ; the toes pared into 

 shape, and, if needful, provided with tips to protect them from splintering on the hard ground. 

 Colts thus early handled by a good-tempered, light-handed man are seldom difficult to dress 

 or to shoe. 



The education of a horse, like the education of a man, is most easily perfected if the pupil 

 is placed in the teacher's hands young, and receives progressive lessons without serious interruption 

 until his professional training is completed, and he is fit to carry a lady or a statesman, to 

 do credit to a fashionable carriage, or form one of the young ones in a hunting-stud. But as 

 it is the exception where the breeder follows the fortunes of his well-bred colt up to the time 

 he attains his majority, say five years old, consideration must be given to those cases where 

 the equine pupil has never looked through a bridle until turned four years, or where a thorough- 

 bred, dismissed from racing stables at three or four years old, has to be taught to abandon 

 the daisy-cutting action permitted on smooth turf, and has to learn to move as befits a park 

 hack, a charger, or a hunter. 



The amount of teaching and time required to make a first-class pleasure horse of any 

 kind will vary according to its natural spirit and intelligence, but the principles of the art of 



