1 38 WATERING HORSES. 



ficially warmed. The employment of any means that pre- 

 vents a horse from quenching his thirst, or at least renders 

 water more or less distasteful to him, can hardly fail to be 

 prejudicial to his health to say nothing of the cruelty. A 

 practice which can fulfil no good end, and which is liable to 

 do harm, should not receive our encouragement. 



QUANTITY OF DRINKING WATER REQUIRED DAILY BY 



HORSES. 



Some animals, such as sheep, goats, rabbits, and hares, will 

 drink little or no water while subsisting on green food, because 

 they perspire only to a slight degree (Colin). The skin of 

 horses, on the contrary, is very active, and therefore they need 

 a comparatively large supply of water. The necessary 

 quantity is, however, subject to wide variations, which 

 are influenced chiefly by the nature of the forage and the 

 activity of the skin, lungs, and kidneys. The fact that grass 

 contains about 80 per cent, of water, and the ordinary food of 

 stabled horses only about 25 per cent, is sufficient to show the 

 effect of diet on the amount of water which is needed. The 

 respective influences of work, climate, clothing, temperature of 

 the stable, and state of the coat, are too well known to need 

 discussion. When a horse is suffering from fever, or from 

 having consumed too much salt or other thirst-producing 

 substance, he will require an unusually large quantity of 

 drinking water to aid in removing the irritating material from 

 his body. 



The daily quantity of water which a horse will drink may be 

 estimated at from 4 to 10 gallons. In hot climates a horse 

 which is doing no work, as on board ship, will drink 5 or 6 

 gallons. Under similar circumstances during cold weather, he 

 will drink about 4 gallons. 



From an experiment which Fred. Smith carried out on ten 

 horses in India during the month of February, he found that 



