The Treatment of Foals. 63 



In these cases it will be necessary to have someone con- 

 stantly on guard ready to enter the box and hold the mare 

 whenever the foal is on its feet, and evincing a desire to 

 suck. The attendant's help is often unnecessary after the 

 foal has sucked once or twice; but in bad cases the mare 

 may require close supervision for twenty-four hours or 

 longer. Judgment and observation will tell when these pre- 

 cautions may safely be relaxed. 



'. 



CONSTIPATION IN THE FOAL. 



The purgative quality of the first-drawn milk has 

 already been noted. This acts with varying degrees of 

 quickness, according to whether the foal's bowels are con- 

 stipated or not. In the early months of the year when, 

 owing to the short days and inclement weather, the exercise 

 of the mare is necessarily rather restricted, the foal will 

 often be found constipated in sympathy. Some equine 

 "mid-wives " seem to have a cast-iron time-table to which 

 they rigidly adhere in all or any circumstances. With them 

 the foal must be on its legs in so many minutes, have sucked 

 in so many more, and passed its first dung in so many more ; 

 failing which they set to work to repair Nature's supposed 

 remissness. Even if it is granted that their methods are 

 attended by apparent success, it is an open question whether 

 success is the result of such methods or in spite of them. 

 Put in homely language, it may be advised in all stable 

 management that Nature should be allowed first try, the 

 groom standing by, ready to go to the mare's assistance the 

 moment she hoists signals of distress. In some instances the 

 foal passes dung before it has sucked, or is even steady 

 enough on its legs to get the teat in its mouth ; but usually 

 the first motion of the bowels takes place in from ten to 

 thirty minutes after the first milk has been swallowed. If 



