336 



FARMER'S CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK 



mares should be fed a nitrogenous grain 

 ration, combined with green feed, to give 

 a large milk yield. Alfalfa, clover and 

 cowpea hay are perhaps best suited to 

 this purpose. The more milk yielded by 

 the mare, the better the development in 

 the colt, since colts are in this respect 

 on the same basis as the calf, lamb or 

 pig. Ogilvie recommends that brood 

 mares should be kept at work constantly 

 during the period of pregnancy, lighten- 

 ing the work somewhat towards foaling 

 time. In his experience, better and 

 more vigorous colts were obtained by 

 this method than where the mares are 

 too much pampered and kept in idle- 

 ness. "The average farm mare can be 

 worked, if in the hands of a careful and 

 intelligent man, right up to the foaling 

 time, without fear of injury to her or 

 her prospective offspring." The same 

 breeder recommends that after a rest 

 of two weeks, following foaling, the 

 mare should again be put to daily work. 

 The colt need not be taken away from 

 the mother during the working hours 

 unless he is too much in the way or li- 

 able to do harm to crops. 



A great variety of opinions prevail re- 

 garding the time when mares should be 

 returned to the stallion for service. Dif- 

 ferent breeders follow different practices 

 in this respect and each one insists up- 

 on his time as being Best. Thus we find 

 recommended as the proper time every 

 day from the ninth to the twenty-first 

 after foaling. The majority of breeders, 

 however, prefer the 18th to the 21st day 

 after foaling. No mistake will be made 

 if either one of these days is selected. 



Care and feed of the stallion — The 

 stallion needs plenty of oats, bran, clean 

 hay, crushed barley, green grass and 

 other forage and no corn. The oats and 

 bran should be fed twice per day, and 

 throughout the mare season. Warren 

 recommends a good sized feed of boiled 

 barley with a little flaxseed cooked in it, 

 mixed with bran and fed hot at night. It 

 is recommended that the stallion should 

 not be fed large quantities of hay or al- 

 lowed to drink much water in the morn- 

 ing, especially just before service. Many 

 breeders use small quantities of beans 

 in the ration for stallions, especially 

 during the breeding season. "With re- 

 gard to the number of mares which may 

 be served by a stallion, much difference 

 of opinion prevails, and great differ- 

 ences are observed in individual horses. 



If a stallion is allowed to begin ser- 

 vice at two years of age, the number of 

 mares should be very small; otherwise, 

 considerable injury will be noted in the 

 development of the stallion and will ap- 

 pear most conspicuously in later years. 

 Most horse raisers recommend that the 

 stallion be not allowed to go into service 

 until he is four or five years old. He 

 may then serve about 20 mares the first 

 season, increasing the number until 50 

 is reached. As a rule, the owners of 

 stallions attempt to keep them gaining 

 in flesh, rather than losing during the 

 breeding season. In order that this may 

 be accomplished,, the stallion should not 

 be over fat at the opening of the season. 

 He should begin the season in moderate 

 flesh and be fed liberally enough to 

 make slight gains in weight during the 

 whole season. His effectiveness and the 

 percentage of colts will be higher than 

 if the stallion begins the season too fat 

 and loses weight as the season pro- 

 gresses. 



The digestive capacity of the horse — 

 As stated in Chapter I, the stomach of 

 ruminants consists of four divisions, 

 whereas the horse has only a single, 

 comparatively small stomach. As the 

 result of this difference, the process of 

 digestion in the horse's stomach is much 

 simpler than it is in that of the cow or 

 sheep. From a chemical standpoint, 

 however, the processes are similar. Ac- 

 cording to Henry, the average capacity 

 of a horse's stomach is 19 quarts; the 

 small intestines, 67 quarts; and the large 

 intestines, 137 quarts. Most comparative 

 experiments with horses and ruminants 

 show that horses have a lower digestive 

 efficiency than cattle and sheep. The 

 horse digests less crude fiber, especially 

 in coarse forage plants, than does the 

 steer or sheep. It does not always ap- 

 pear, however, in such tests, that the 

 digestion of the horse is particularly in- 

 effective. Thus, in Utah, it was found 

 that horses make as good use of their 

 food as cattle and are fully as easy to 

 mature as steers. 



Injurious feeding stuffs — Many 

 plants are known to be more or less poi- 

 sonous to horses and some of the com- 

 mon cultivated horse feeds occasionally 

 become poisonous as the result of being 

 infected with ergot, smut or molds. 

 Ergot occurs quite commonly on rye, 

 wild rye grass and various other spe- 

 cies of wild grasses, particularly 



