182 LIGHT HORSES: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



are, doubtless, March, April, and May, the last especially, as 

 then the young creatures are almost certain to have genial 

 weather, and nothing in the shape of food is comparable with 

 the green herbage of spring and early summer for milk pro- 

 duction in the dams. Early foaling is only too frequently 

 synonymous with debility, unthriftiness, and stunted growth 

 in the foals unless artificial treatment is adopted, and even 

 hay and oats do not fully compensate for the absence of 

 grass as an article of food. 



It is only too well known to breeders that when foals miss 

 a good start at the commencement of their life, and sustain a 

 check to their growth, it generally requires much time and 

 nursing to repair the damage ; indeed, sometimes the effect 

 is so serious that their vigour and full development are per- 

 manently arrested. Foaling late in the year is also objection- 

 able, as the young animals have then not sufficient time to 

 gain strength before the advent of winter. 



The season of the year and state of the weather will deter- 

 mine the propriety of turning the dam and foal into the 

 paddock or pasture after parturition, but the sooner this can 

 safely be done, the better for both, if only for an hour or two 

 at first, while the weather is fine ; as the genial rays of the sun 

 have a most exhilarating influence on the foal. Exposure to 

 rain must be rigorously avoided, as the woolly texture of the 

 foal's coat retains the wet for a long time, and is very likely 

 to give rise to catarrh or some bowel affection. Sometimes 

 mares, and most frequently those with their first foal, do not 

 secrete a sufficient quantity of milk to nourish their offspring. 

 Gentle rubbing of the udder with new milk, and allowing the 

 foal to go to the teat as often as it will, stimulates the gland ; 

 while soft succulent food, such as grass, sloppy mashes of 

 boiled barley or oats to which treacle has been added, assists 

 in exciting the secretion. When the mare chances to be ill or 

 dies, or does not give milk, then the foal must be nursed by a 

 foster mother, or fed artificially with milk obtained from a 

 mare or she ass. If this cannot be conveniently procured, 



