CHOICE OF PLACE FOR WHELPING. 257 
may be given them three times a day, or every four hours if they 
are a large litter. In the fourth week get a sheep’s head, boil it 
in a quart of water till the meat comes completely to pieces, then 
carefully take away every particle of bone, and break up the meat 
into fragments no larger than a small horse-bean ; mix all up with 
the broth, thicken this to the consistence of cream with /ine wheat- 
flour, boil for a quarter of an hour, then cool and give alternately 
with the milk. At this time the milk may also be thickened with 
flour, and as the puppies grow, and the milk of the bitch decreases 
in quantity, the amount of milk and thickened broth must be 
increased each day, as well as more frequently given. Some art, 
founded on experience, is required not to satiate the puppies; but, 
by carefully increasing the quantity whenever the puppies have 
finished it greedily the last time or two, they will not be overdone. 
In no case should the pan containing the food be left in the inter- 
vals with the puppies, if they have not cleared it out, as they only 
become disgusted with it, and next time refuse to feed. A sheep’s 
head will serve a litter of large-sized puppies two days up to wean- 
ing, more or less according to numbers and age. 
CHOICE OF PLACE FOR WHELPING. 
The whelping-place, wp to the third week, may be confined to 
a square yard or two, floored with board as already described. 
After the third week, when the puppies begin to run about, access 
should be given them to a larger run, and an inclined plane should 
be arranged for them to get up and down from their boarded stage. 
If the weather is cold, the best place for a bitch to whelp is in a 
saddle-room warmed by a stove; or an empty stall, with a two- 
foot board placed across the bottom, opposite the stall-post, so as 
to prevent the puppies getting among the horses. In either case 
there is an amount of artificial heat, which conduces to the growth 
of the puppies, and allows them to be reared sufficiently strong to 
bear any cold afterwards with impunity. If the weather is not 
cold, an ordinary horse-box is the best place which can be chosen, 
fixing the boarded stage at a distance from the door, and either 
sanding or slightly littering the brick floor, according to the 
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