Care of the New-Born Animal 563 



intestinal contents are being normally expelled. We are chiefly 

 concerned with the discharge of the accumulated excretion in 

 the intestines, known as meconium. Normally, this should be 

 expelled very shortly after birth, which in some cases does not 

 occur, especially in the foal, and as a result there soon appear 

 symptoms of rentention of the meconium, which we shall consider 

 later, among the diseases of the new-born. It is highly important 

 that the care-taker should see that the meconium is promptly 

 expelled, and if necessary its expulsion should be favored by 

 means of enemas of warm water, warm normal salt solution, or 

 soda bicarborate solution. The enemas should be continued 

 until all hard pellets of meconium have come away and there 

 follows instead a soft, pasty meconic mass. 



5. The young animal should be promptly supplied with nour- 

 ishment. In the larger domestic animals, the need for early 

 nourishment is important, and it is best that the young animal 

 should receive a liberal supply of milk within an hour or two 

 after its birth, since otherwise it suffers more or less from hunger. 

 It is essential that the young animal is enabled to reach the teat 

 and suck, or that milk be administered to it artificially. In 

 herbivorous animals the mother always stands for the young to 

 suck, and consequently it is necessary that the latter be able to 

 stand or be assisted in standing, in order that it may reach the 

 teat and procure nourishment. If for any reason the young 

 animal cannot stand, milk should be drawn from the udder of 

 the mother and given to it in sufficient quantity and at proper 

 intervals. 



The young animal should not be allowed too much milk, how- 

 ever, since it will frequently overfeed. This is especially true 

 of the foal, which sometimes shows an inordinate appetite and 

 seems to consider it incumbent upon it to take all the milk which 

 the udder of the mother contains, and thereby serioush' overfeeds, 

 which may end in more or less severe indigestion. It is conse- 

 quently advisable, in many instances, to withdraw a portion of 

 the milk for the first few days in order to prevent the overfeed- 

 ing of the young foal, a danger which does not seem to exist to 

 the same degree in other young animals. 



Some writers insist that it is highly essential for the young 

 animal to receive from the mother the first milk, or colostrum, 

 because, they say, this acts as a laxative and brings away the 



