THE PERCHERON REVIEW 
37 
Management of Brood Mares 
The best thing for the pregnant brood mare is a 
reasonable amount of work, being handled intelli- 
gently and not pulled too heavily. Your best men 
should be assigned to work the brood mares, as 
there is a great deal at stake. It is surprising how 
much work a pregnant mare will do if she is properly 
handled. It is needless to remark that a mare 
heavy in foal should not be required to back with a 
load. If the mare is worked she will naturally be 
fed, consequently the mother and foal will both be 
nourished. It has been our experience that mares 
worked and fed in a reasonable manner seldom have 
any trouble at foaling time, while the idle mares 
that have been allowed to become fat and lazy are 
likely to have some trouble or give birth to a weak, 
puny foal. 
It is a great mistake to be loud and boisterous 
among a band of mares. It makes them wild and 
nervous and they soon become very shy of men, 
making it difficult to handle them if anything goes 
wrong at foaling time. The quieter you can keep 
all of your horses the better it is for all concerned. 
Omit the Wild West stuff. 
It is quite essential that mares have some sort of 
shelter both from summer sun and winter winds. 
Do not compel your valuable horses to live in the 
corn stalks day and night, subsisting on what little 
they can pick up. The idea of horses roughing it is 
all right to a certain extent, but it can easily be 
overdone and the results are rather expensive. One 
redeeming feature of the cornstalk pasture is that 
the horse usually gets plenty of exercise, which is 
very necessary for a brood mare. In providing 
shelter for your mares do not make the mistake of 
crowding them into a small space, as there are usually 
one or two old cranks in the band and it does not 
take them long to do serious damage with their heels. 
Many colts have been lost in this way and many 
mares injured. 
Passing on to the care of the mare at foaling time, 
the first thing we desire to say is to be sure that you 
keep a careful record of when your mares were 
bred. This may seem like a small matter, but in 
our business of breeding and standing horses for 
public service we have found that it is one of the 
very important, apparently little things. After 
all, success in the breeding game consists in atten- 
tion to a great many little things rather than atten- 
tion to one or two large matters. It costs nothing 
to keep a careful record of your mares so that intel- 
ligent assistance may be rendered at the proper time. 
A mare does not ring a bell when she is about to 
foal, therefore it will stand you in good stead to 
know her exact time. As a usual thing a mare will 
carry her foal about three hundred and forty days. 
We say about that time because mares vary as do 
all other animals. Ordinarily we expect a young 
mare to drop her foal ahead of time, but most aged 
mares will overrun their time slightly. The idea 
in keeping a careful record is to enable one to know 
when it will be necessary to begin to watch the mare 
closely. This is an important matter, as many 
times a little intelligent assistance will save the 
foal and sometimes the mare. At this stage of the 
proceedings the owner should step in and shine by 
assuming charge if possible, or if not convenient some 
experienced man may be placed in charge. Remem- 
ber, you are about to be rewarded with the fruits of 
the mare's labor, so watch her closely. One of 
the surest signs of approaching parturition is the 
wax that forms on the teats. This will ordinarily 
begin to show about three days before the mare 
foals. 
As to the best place for a mare to foal, our own 
experience has been that there is no place so good 
as a grasslot that is clean and dry where other 
horses may not interfere with the mare. This is 
assuming that the weather is warm and mild. The 
danger with a mare foaling in a boxstall is that she 
may become jammed in a corner and serious trouble 
result. When a mare foals she is a sick animal and 
will naturally thrash around some. It is much 
more difficult to assist a mare in a box than in a 
grass-lot, where one has plenty of room to maneuver. 
But wherever the mare is to foal, be absolutely 
certain that the place is clean. Under no circum- 
stances allow a mare to foal in a stall having an 
accumulation of manure and other filth on the floor. 
The stall, if one is to be used, and it is well to pre- 
pare one in case of bad weather, should be thoroughly 
cleaned and disinfected and put in a sanitary con- 
dition generally. It is not a good practice to make 
much fuss around a mare about to foal, as she does 
not receive it kindly and will put off her delivery 
as long as possible. 
Percheron Mares at Plow 
