THE BREEDING OF HORSES 203 



milk is taken, there is usually no trouble in clearing the bowels 

 after birtk. However, the dam may have some trouble with her 

 milk at first, or the young, through weakness, may not get a 

 good draft of fore-milk ; in some cases even, care is taken to draw 

 off the colostrum before the young thing suckles, in the belief 

 that it is unfit to be taken ; and the colt suffers accordingly. In 

 order to avoid the difficulties arising from this cause, the first 

 care should be to insure a good portion of the fore-milk for the 

 young creature. Then if, from any cause, tlie digestive tract has 

 not been cleared of its contents within twenty-four hours, the 

 bowels must be stimulated to action by a tablespoonful of castor 

 oil and a warm water injection. 



The other cause of many deaths in young animals' is infec- 

 tion with pus and disease germs through the navel. At the 

 moment the umbilical cord is ruptured there is a direct commu- 

 nication from without to some of the vital internal organs and 

 blood of the foal. This opening is later closed naturally by the 

 swelling and final drying and sloughing off of the end of the cord. 

 There is thus a brief opportunity for the entrance of bacteria 

 which may later affect the system generally or locally and 

 produce serious results. It has been- satisfactorily demonstrated 

 that the so-called navel or joint ill, in foals, is due to organisms 

 entering through this channel. 



If this affection has prevailed in a stable it would be well 

 to remove pregnant mares to clean, uninfected quarters and 

 allow tJiem to foal there. The new-born foal should be dropped 

 only on fresh litter, and it would be safer to wash the stump 

 of the cord with a saturated solution of boracic acid and then 

 dust with boric acid powder. These precautions have been the 

 means of eradicating the difficulty from many stables where 

 deaths had occurred year after year. 



It is not advisable to cut or ligate the cord, but allow it to 

 break naturally, as it will do if left alone. A torn or broken 

 blood-vessel will not bleed, whereas, one that is cut directly 

 across will, and it takes a skilled hand and sterilized materials 

 to make a ligature that mil not do more harm than good. If it 

 were more generally known that the newly broken umbilical cord 



