240 CONFESSIONS OF A HOUSE DEALKR. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



TBEATMENT OF MARES WITH FOAfc, 



THE usual period of gestation in the mare is from 

 forty-eight to fifty-two weeks, but she sometimes varies 

 from forty-six to fifty-four weeks. Some writers have 

 asserted that the mare goes with foal eleven months and 

 as many days as she is years old ; others that she goes 

 eleven months with a mare, and twelve months with a 

 horse colt ; but there is no dependence to be placed in 

 such rules. In some instances I have known mares to 

 foal horse colts in ten months and two weeks, and in 

 others to go a year and upwards, and yet bring forth 

 mare colts ; one year, a mare to foal in eleven months, 

 and the succeeding year the same mare to go three weeks 

 longer, and in both cases had fillies. Out of a record of 

 eighty mares kept in one season, the average period of 

 gestation was eleven months and one week ; of these 

 there were forty horse colts, and the same number of 

 fillies ; the horse colts averaging one day the longest, 

 which was caused by one very old mare going over a 

 year. These facts prove the fallacy of such predictions. 

 After your mare has been put to the horse of your 

 choice, she should not be confined too closely during her 



