On Mismanagement of Farm-Horses, 



521 



cow be deficient for one day, the milk is reduced in quantity for 

 several days. Again, a starved colt often bears about with him 

 for months, and even years, the unmistakeable evidences of an 

 ill-judged economy in his early diet. It requires long good 

 feeding to get him into condition, and he is in general less easily 

 kept in condition than a horse well fed from his birth. Such 

 facts show the great importance of supplying horses with a suffi- 

 ciency of food at all times, and any sort of management which 

 overlooks or ignores this fact must be inconsistent with the health 

 of the animals and with the best interests of the proprietor. 



(e) Before passing to the consideration of improper food we 

 shall briefly notice an error in the dieting of farm-horses which is 

 unfortunately very widely prevalent. It is this : much too long 

 an interval is often allowed to intervene between the times of 

 feeding. The animals are frequently worked for six hours con- 

 secutively, and during this time receive no food whatever. Such 

 a practice is very prejudicial to the health of horses, preventing 

 their being kept in good condition, rendering them prone to 

 debilitating diseases, and especially liable to colic and almost all 

 diseases of the digestive system. The natural habits of the horse 

 and the conformation of his digestive system show that he has 

 neither been intended nor is adapted to suffer such long fasts. 

 When at liberty he eats during twenty of the twenty-four hours, 

 and the smallness of his stomach clearly indicates the necessity of 

 supplying him with food at frequent short intervals. Farm- 

 horses should, therefore, be fed every four, or at most every five 

 hours ; and if there be a longer interval between the regular 

 times of feeding, an intermediate meal should be given. This 

 may conveniently consist of a cake, either of bean-meal, or of a 

 mixture of bean and oatmeal. A pound weight of this, kneaded 

 up with water and sufficiently fired, may be given to each horse ; 

 and for the field or road such food, when compared with hay or 

 corn, has the great advantage of being speedily eaten, of affording 

 much nutriment in a conveniently concentrated form, and of 

 being little liable to be wasted. The author is acquainted with 

 several farmers who give these cakes whenever the work is severe 

 and the hours lono-, and all of them ao^ree that their horses are 

 now in much better heart and condition, and less frequently- 

 attacked by indigestion and colic, than they were when subjected 

 to protracted abstinence and without any mtermediate meal. 



(/) Food may be improper on account of excess of quantity, over- 

 nutritiveness, or bad quality ; and under these several heads we 

 purpose noticing the subject of improper food. 



An excessive quantity of food consumed at one time is very apt 

 to produce immediate bad consequences, as colic, enteritis, 

 laminitis, and occasionally, from the great distension generally 



