296 Western Livestock Management 



acquire the habit and will always make trouble in han- 

 dling the feet, either for shoeing or for trimming. A com- 

 mon method is to stand the colt on the board floor and 

 trim off the surplus horn with his foot on the floor. One 

 front foot is tied up to make him keep his other foot on 

 the floor. In working with the left hind foot, tie up the 

 left fore foot ; and with the right hind foot, the right 

 fore foot. With this method, the horn is cut with a 

 mallet and chisel. This is a quick and easy device 

 adapted to vicious horses, but the operator cannot do 

 as good a piece of work, and often has difficulty in telling 

 exactly where to cut, since he has to guess at the position 

 of the sole. In buying nippers or any instrument for 

 hoof cutting, one should procure only the best, for the 

 poorer ones will probably not cut at all. (See Fig. 31.) 



WINTERING THE FOAL 



Many persons in raising their young horses make a 

 mistake in not supplying them with a liberal enough ration, 

 especially during the first year. After the colts are weaned 

 from the dam, it is difficult to keep them in good condition, 

 and at such times special care and feed should be given 

 them. Feed is seldom made too liberal, as this is the time 

 to shove the colt if exceptional growth is desired. Horse- 

 men agree that if you stunt the colt you stunt the horse, 

 and that if you have a stunted yearling you seldom obtain 

 a good mature horse. On the other hand, a growthy 

 yearling does not need the feed nor care afterwards that 

 the stunted one demands. In order to get this growth in 

 the winter, it is necessary that the colt be fed some grain 

 in connection with hay and roughage. If timothy is fed 

 as the roughage, the grain must be of nitrogenous char- 



