m 
491 
FROM S. S. MORDEN. 
I aim to have my colts foaled as near the 
first of May as possible, so as to have pasture 
for both mare and colt at the start. I usual¬ 
ly give the mare bran mashes for a week or 
10 days after foaling, and then turn her and 
the colt into a good pasture with abundance 
of water, and allow them to feed themselves 
till cold weather comes on in the fall. Then 
I put them both in the stable and wean the 
colt by tying it beside the mare, and allow¬ 
ing it to suck but once or twice per day for a 
week or more, when I remove it to a separate 
stable and complete the job of weaning. 
While weaning the colt, I teach it to lead by 
putting a collar on the mare and tying the 
colt to it, and then leading the mare around 
till the colt gives up struggling and follows 
along quietly. I have found that this method 
of breaking to lead saves one a good deal of 
tugging and jerking, and insures against the 
possibility of the colt getting away altogeth¬ 
er, and learning a bad habit. 
After taking the colt from the mare 1 feed 
it clover hay, if I have it, or the best hay I 
have if I don’t have clover, and a ration of 
bran and ground oats three times a day for 
the first winter. The second and third win¬ 
ters I usually substitute straw for hay and in¬ 
crease the bran and grain ration. I prefer a 
stable with a ground floor for colts, and after 
they are thoroughly halter-broken I usually 
et them loose in the stable—sometimes four 
to six in one stable. I do not attempt to do 
more than halter-break a colt till it is nearly 
three years old, when I break it to harness, 
both single and double, and also to the sad¬ 
dle; and by kind treatment from first to last 
I have never had any difficulty in making 
good, true, kind, serviceable horse3. I might 
add that my experience has mostly been with 
half-bred Percheron horses. 
Prince Edward County, Ont., Canada. 
FROM J. D. BRUBAKER. 
The first and most essential point in raising 
good horses is to see that when the mare has 
foaled, the colt has a sufficient quantity of 
proper nourishment to insure rapid growth. 
The food should consist mainly of the 
nourishment afforded by its dam for at 
least four weeks; then it should be taught to 
eat some oats which have been previously 
soaked for at least five hours, being careful 
not to give it too much; first give about half 
a pint and increase the quantity as the colt 
gets older. The colt should run with its dam 
in the pasture, when it will not require so 
much feed as oats; but when the mare is re¬ 
quired to work, the colt should be put up in 
the stable, and fed a little oats and a little 
green cut grass, and it will thrive better, 
and it will be better for the mare, than if the 
colt is allowed to follow the plow, harrow or 
mower, which might injure it; butduring the 
nights it should be turned out with the mare 
on grass, as a colt needs, the first year of its 
growth, all the exercise it can get to develop 
its legs and form and toughen its hoofs, as 
well as the other parts of its body. 
In localities where for the greater part of 
the year the weather is wet and the soil rather 
spongy, the hoofs should be pared off at the 
points in order that the lower and upper mus¬ 
cles of the legs may be properly developed. 
The training of a colt is one of the chief 
things in making a valuable horse. The colt 
should be taught to lead and drive single when 
or before it is six months old. For “break¬ 
ing,” “training” ought to be substituted; but 
if one does not teach a colt how to work, lead 
and be dutiful while it is a colt, it will cer¬ 
tainly need “breaking” later on. Training 
colts when they are colts enhances their 
value one-half or more. Feed colts and teach 
them at the same time, and do it when they 
are young, and when they grow up they will 
regard you as their master. 
Cheyenne County, Nebraska. 
FROM A. B. TUCKER. 
It is as impossible to raise a good colt from 
poor parents as it is to raise a good crop of 
grain from poor seed and a worn-out piece of 
laud. In the first place, one should know 
what he is breeding for. A horse should be 
bred solely with a view to the labor he is to 
perform. The first thing for the breeder to 
do, therefore, is to decide what he wants to do 
with the horse. Let us suppose that he is to 
be used as a farm horse; for in these days it 
is poor business for the average farmer to 
undertake to raise trotters. In this case, I 
would recommend auy of the draft breeds, as 
the Clyde, Norman-Percheron, Shire, etc. 
There are good and poor horses belonging to 
all the breeds. To raise a good colt both 
parents should be selected with reference to 
their individual points of excellence. For or¬ 
dinary use a mare to breed from should be 
short-legged, with a deep and roomy chest, 
small head, wide hips and be so built as to in¬ 
dicate a robust animal, and she should have 
a good disposition. If possible, always avoid 
raising colts from a mare with a large head 
and ears, or from a slab sided, long-legged 
animal, or from animals that have diseases 
such as ringbone, spavin, etc., or from ani¬ 
mals with a bad disposition. In case I had 
such animals and wished to raise colts, I 
would dispose of them even at a sacrifice, and 
procure others better adapted to the use I in¬ 
tended to put them to; for in horses, as in 
other things, “like produces like,” or, in other 
words, the offspring will inherit'the general 
traits or a mixture of the qualities of both 
parents. We should therefore try to get the 
best breeding stock that can be procured. 
There is no profit in raising inferior horses, 
for it costs no more to feed, shelter and care 
for good horses than for poor stock, and after 
one has cared for a colt for two to four 
years, he likes to have something to be proud 
of, instead of being disappointed, as he would 
be, in nine cases out of 10, should he breed 
from inferior stock. 
As to the care of a colt, my mode of treat¬ 
ment is about as follows: After the colt is a 
week or two old, I generally use the mare at 
ordinary farm work, taking care not to over¬ 
work or over-heat her. The colt is generally 
left at the barn in a large box-stall, made so 
tight that the little thing cannot get fast 
or hurt itself. The mare is fed liberally with 
all the hay she can eat, and also gets about 
six quarts of oats at a feed three times a day, 
except when she is not at work; then she is 
turned into the pasture. As soon as the colt 
can be induced to eat it gets all the oats it 
will eat, and when the mare is out at work 1 
cut an armful of green grass ana put it where 
tho colt can get it. I also set a pail of water 
so that it can always have plenty to eat and 
drink, and 1 find that by so doing the colt will 
soon learn to eat and drink, and will scarcely 
mind the absence of its dam. The colt is gen¬ 
erally allowed to run with the mare until it 
is from five to six months old, when it is 
weaned, after which it receives about the 
same care and feed as before. 
During the first winter the colt should 
have a good warm stable, and plenty of 
good hay, and two or three quarts of oats 
twice a day. A couple of ears of corn at 
each feed also would not go amiss. A hand¬ 
ful of oil-meal in its feed, two or three times a 
week, is also beneficial. Should the colt be 
inclined to be troubled with worms, a table¬ 
spoonful of salt and wood ashes, equal quan¬ 
tities, mixed, and given in its feed twice^a 
week, will keep it in a healthy condition, and 
even though it may have no worms, the dose 
will be good for it. 
I can give no set of rules for feeding and 
caring for a colt, that will work ell in all 
cases, for some colts should receive treatment 
entirely different from that best for others. 
The great point to be always kept in mind is 
to get the greatest amount of growth on the 
animal the first year. I do not say that it 
ought to be kept “ hog-fat;” but it should be 
kept growing. The grand results are ob¬ 
tained from regularity in feeding, with grain 
enough to keep the animal growing contin¬ 
ually ; for a colt that is stunted the first year 
of its growth will never make the horse that 
it would have been with proper care. 
While speaking of feed and care, we should 
not forget to give our colt plenty of pure 
water to drink, and in winter it should not be 
compelled to drink ice-water, and then stand 
and shiver for half an hour. But perhaps all 
farmers have not got their barns as handy as 
I have. My stable will scarcely ever freeze 
even in the most severe weather, and my 
watering trough is right in the barn, and I 
find it a pleasure instead of a task to take care 
of my horses in cold weather. Then again, 
wo should give the colt plenty of exercise in 
the open air. He should be turned out into a 
lot every day except when it is stormy or bad 
weather outside, for exercise is essential for 
the development of the muscles and the gen¬ 
eral health of the animal. As to the mode of 
training and handling : When the colt is a 
week or two old 1 train him to the halter. 
Generally two or three lessons will be suffi¬ 
cient, and if it has been done with care and 
kindness, he will never forget it. From this 
time on he is bandied more or less every day. 
He soon learns that he has nothing to fear 
and will come when be is called. A colt 
should always be treated with kindness, and 
should never be plagued or tormented, as 
doing so produces a bad disposition. When a 
colt is a j ear old, I generally train him to the 
use of the bridle, and also to be ridden, and 
when he is two years old he is trained to be 
driven, both single and double. All this 
training goes on step by step, care and kind¬ 
ness being exercised. The whip is’an instrument 
I have very little use for. I haven’t a horse 
or colt that would know what it was for, and 
were I to show them, they would look at 
it, and smell at it. and want to taste it to 
learn if it was good to eat. My neighbors 
ask me how I manage when I want to drive 
my steady farm team on the road without a 
whip to touch them up, and I tell them my 
horses seem to understand what is required of 
them and will step off at a lively pace, and in¬ 
stead of my having to “push” on the lines, or 
touch them up with a whip, I have to hold 
them back to steady them, or they would go 
so fast as to overheat and hurt themselves. 
Some men think that they will have a pic¬ 
nic ora smash-up when they’ undertake to 
break in a colt; but with kind and gentle 
treatment such as I give mine, they would 
have nothing to fear. Last season I put in a 
two-year-old colt to work and the third time 
it was hitched up, a 12-year-old boy hitched 
it to my buggy without the assistance of any 
one. I have never yet raised a colt that after 
it was a^year old, I could not take from the 
pasture and ride without a bridle or even a 
halter. Indeed the young things would step 
around among;the other horses, and hold up 
their heads as though they were proud of the 
honor of being ridden. This I attribute to 
kindness on my part, for 1 consider it no 
harder when handling them, to speak a kind 
word, and pat them on the neck, than it 
would be to give them a kick, and shout at 
the top of my voice: “Get away there!” Then 
again, I maintain that a man who has no 
love for a horse could never raise a good colt, 
for he would neglect to care for it, and should 
he undertake to “break it,” he would no 
doubt spoil what might have been a good 
horse, for his idea of training a colt is, first of 
all, to let it know what a whip is for, and its 
second lesson is a continuation of the first, and 
the third and fourth are repetitions of the 
others until the colt knows nothing except the 
whip. 
But, to condense my method in the smallest 
space I would say: Select good, sound and 
gentle horses to breed from; feed liberally 
and treat your colts with kindness: for the 
saying is no more true in the human family, 
than in the animal, that “ love is the cause 
of love,” 
Jones County, Iowa. 
FROM H. A. WHITTEMORE. 
Before taking the colt from the dam for 
the purpose of weaning him, prepare a box- 
stall with a ground floor and a manger which 
he can easily reach, being neither too high 
nor too low, with a feed-box for grain. Take 
him at once from the mother and having 
previously prepared a feed of fine, well-cured 
hay, place him in his stable away from the 
smell or sound of any horse. Give his feed at 
regular intervals. In addition to the hay 
give him some roller-process wheat bran. Al¬ 
ways scald this with boiling water and after 
it has cooled feed about one quart at a time 
twice a day. From the first handle him with 
gentleness but firmness, and continue until 
he knows you are his friend. Use the card 
and brush every day. Water regularly but 
never give enough to chill him. If you have 
it you will find much benefit in feeding sweet 
milk every day, and this you may continue 
even until he is two or three years old or old¬ 
er. Be sure the feed is sufficiently liberal to 
keep him growing. Under no circumstances 
allow him to become stunted, or even cloyed. 
Always see that his appetite is good and nat¬ 
ural. Keep salt where he can always have 
access to it, for I find it a great promoter of 
health. Through the weaning process in¬ 
crease his feed by adding a small quantity of 
clean oats, until he gets at least two quarts a 
day of oats and bran—always scalded. Let 
the handling be with that kindness that in¬ 
spires confidence, but always be the master. 
If possible give a few potatoes or carrots 
twice a week; these seem to keep the bowels 
in a healthy condition. 
To halter-break, begin by holding the colt 
and afterwards tying him for a short time 
and increase the period until you could leave 
him in safety for any length of time. 
To handle a colt successfully one must be 
self-possessed and determined. After one has 
learned the animal’s disposition, then kind¬ 
ness should be his rule, but he should punish 
wrong as well as reward right. Take all gear¬ 
ing or halter off and with a whip begin the 
lessons in obedience. Tap him gently and 
speak firmly to him and when he obeys, give 
him a bit of an apple, a lump of sugar or some¬ 
thing he likes, to reward his obedience. If 
you have made a good point leave him to rest. 
Next time commence at the place where you 
left off, but soon try to make him repeat his 
old tricks, and make these the basis on which 
to build up success. Whenever you go to his 
stable, meet him with something to attract his 
attention, and by doing this you will soon 
teach him to know his name and come to you. 
