1914. 
T1-41C RURAL NEW-YORKEa 
lOl 
. , THE “ CAST” HORSE. 
A “cast” horse is one that gets down in, 
(he stall and is unable to rise. This is a 
common and often fatal accident, that 
might in many instances be prevented. 
Why does a horse become cast? That 
question is frequently asked, and cannot 
be answered in a word, for there are sev¬ 
eral causes of casting. It may happen 
from the halter rope or strap (shank) 
being so short that when the horse tries 
to rise he is held too close to the manger 
aud his feet slide under it, keeping him 
down. Where the manger aud hay rack 
do not come down flush with the floor a 
dangerous open space is left into which 
the feet are apt to slide and become 
caught, and we have known of at least 
one case where the horse got his head 
caught in the same way and broke his 
neck. The accident is also liable to hap¬ 
pen in a stall that is too narrow or too 
wide. In the narrow stall the horse rolls 
up against the partition, and is unable 
to get up, or he turns partly around in a 
wide stall to scratch his tail and becomes 
caught and cast. When rolling in a wide 
stall, or box stall, the horse may get his 
shoes caught by the heels under a parti¬ 
tion board that does not come down flush 
to the floor, and then finds he is unable 
to rise. Sometimes a horse manages Jp 
kick his foot through a thin partition 
board, or between two.weak boards, and 
in struggling to free himself falls and 
stays down. Often the leg is fractured 
when such an accident occurs. Casting 
may also occur in another peculiar way. 
The standing horse, when scratching his 
ear or head with a hind foot, gets the 
foot over the halter rope or caught in 
halter, and" goes down in a heap, kicking 
and struggling until he becomes exhaust¬ 
ed. In one case on record a horse when 
scratching his head got a foot “impaled” 
upon one of his long, sharp tushes (can¬ 
ine teeth), severed an artery, went down 
and bled to death. The latter accident 
could not well bo prevented, but the 
other causes mentioned above might well 
be removed. 
The manger should always come down 
flush with the floor, leaving no space to 
trap the horse. This also prevents fester¬ 
ing manure and trash from collecting at 
the head of the stall, and incidentally 
closes a favorite highway of rats. A stall 
should not be less than four feet six 
inches, or more than five feet two inches 
in width for ordinary horses. Very large 
draft horses need a trifle more space, but 
for them it should not be excessive. A 
brood mare should not stand in an ordi¬ 
nary stall when heavy in foal. So stalled 
she is afraid to lie down, hence suffers 
from dropsical swellings of the abdomen, 
or “stocking” of the legs; or she lies 
down and becomes cast. Many a mare 
has aborted as the result of this accident, 
and in more than one instance we remem¬ 
ber of mares dying under such circum¬ 
stances. Give the brood mare a roomy 
box stall when in the stable, aud see that 
she is abundantly exercised every day. 
.Stall partitions should be made of long, 
strong, thick planks braced at the center 
of the partition and at each end. Such 
planks “give” but do not break or splin¬ 
ter when they are kicked or rolled against 
by a horse. Partitions built of short 
planking put in perpendicularly are dan¬ 
gerous. The horse may kick an opening 
between two planks, catch his foot in it 
and go down or break his leg. In box 
stalls, which should never be less than 
SxS feet in size, and ought to be 12x12 
feet, the partition walls should come flush 
to the floor, and better still, should be 
slightly sloped toward the center of the 
stall to lessen the likelihood of the horse’s 
shoes becoming caught when he rolls, llox 
stall partitions sloped inward a foot also 
prevent a horse from rubbing his tail. 
Such walls are best used in box stalls 
over 12x12 feet in size. The partitions of 
a colic box stall in a veterinary hospital 
should be well padded. Halter ropes or 
straps should be sufficiently long, have 
“sinkers” of wood or metal attached to 
(heir free ends, and work freely through 
large metal rings. It is a mistake to 
fasten the halter directly to the manger. 
When a horse is four. 1 cast in his stall 
do not become “rattled,” as often occurs. 
Many a horse has been shot as paralyzed 
that would get up in time if sensibly 
treated. Remember that when a horse 
lias been cast for a long time the hind 
leg on the under side tends to become 
numb or cramped from lack of circulation 
of blood. In this condition it is useless 
to the horse. Pull the horse out of the 
stall, if that is found possible. Never try 
to make him get up when it is seen that 
he is cast. He has tried his best to rise 
and failed. If he cannot be pulled into 
the runway at the rear of the stall, pull 
down the partition against which he is 
cast; then roll the horse over and ex¬ 
amine the legs that he has been lying 
upon. One of them may be broken. That 
often is found to be the case, and usually 
necessitates the destruction of animal. 
If the legs are found intact proceed to 
move them thoroughly and massage the 
muscles to stimulate normal circulation 
of blood. A stimulating liniment rubbed 
upon the muscles will more quickly in¬ 
duce the circulation. After the extrem¬ 
ities have become warm and sensitive 
encourage the horse to rise. If he cannot 
do so have several men assist him, if nec¬ 
essary helping to lift him by means of, 
a folded canvas sheet or even a wide 
plank passed under his belly. 
Before shooting a cast horse that is 
unable to rise, although his leg is not 
broken, have the veterinarian use the 
catheter to draw off the urine. Azoturia 
often is brought on by the struggles of a 
cast horse that has been standing idle in 
the stable. The urine in such a case will 
be found dark red-brown in color, or like 
strong coffee. The disease may prove 
curable by the intelligent treatment of a 
qualified veterinarian. 
A. S. ALEXANDER, M.D. C. 
Experience With Dairy Breeds. 
I have been much interested in your 
discussion of breeds. I will give my ex¬ 
perience on the subject, and perhaps some 
“back-to-the-lander” may profit by it. I 
have bred Ilolsteins, Jerseys and Guern¬ 
seys, have sold milk, butter and cream. 
I have weighed the milk and kept its rec¬ 
ord. So the following information is 
nearly accurate as a busy farmer can 
have it. It might be well to note here 
that this is a very rough hilly farm, like 
thousands of our New England farms, 
and my experience has-been altogether on 
rough rocky New England farms where 
cows cover miles in a day while in past¬ 
ure to secure food. 
The Ilolsteins I have had in the past 
have been great,, large-boned cows that 
would eat in a day 10 pounds of silage 
and 25 pounds of hay, besides a large 
grain ration. As we are told by the 
experiment station that large cows are 
the only cows, therefore I was quite sure 
I was on the right track, for these great 
big sleepy cows gave more milk and 
cream than nearly two of the Guernseys 
or Jerseys in the same barn, and I was 
positive that a large, bony, big-feeding 
machine in the shape of a Holstein was 
the only cow to have. But in the Spring, 
when I turned out my cows in the large 
stony pasture in the hills with all those 
beautiful trickling springs, the would-be 
back-to-the-lander dreams of my Ilolsteins 
began to get poor in flesh, shrink in 
weight and milk. Not so however with 
the smaller rustlers, the Guernseys and 
Jerseys. They were scrabbling over rocks 
here and there, never tiring, and through 
the Summer months and early Fall I be¬ 
came positive that Jerseys or Guernseys 
were the only breed for a New England 
farmer to own. But at the same time 
I had a warm place in my heart for the 
Holstein cows and could not give them 
up. So after a year of careful search 
I found a breeder who had my New Eng¬ 
land type of a Holstein, which he had 
been working up for years. They have 
the energetic vigorous, active tempera¬ 
ment of the smaller breeds. They have 
also the large muzzle and barrel of the j 
big Holstein cow. But they have not ' 
the bones, their bodies are compact but ! 
not beefy, although they make better beef 
than the cow with so much bone. They 
have the milking qualities for which the 
Holstein is noted and at the same time 
will rustle for a living on my rough past¬ 
ure with any of the smaller breeds. 
I do not like small cows, but on our 
rugged, New England hills there is a 
limit to size, unless you can combine it 
with activity. This is a quality which 
does not exist to any great extent as a 
rule in a large big-boned cow. But it is 
not the breed that makes the success in 
dairying: it is the man. There are suc¬ 
cesses and failures in all breeds due sole 
Iv to the man and not the breed, it. g. 
'i 
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