62 
PURE BRED DRAFT HORSES 
she may be watered she may be taken to the boxstall, turned in with the 
foal and fed her grain. Beginning with half a day in this fashion, she 
may be gradually toughened back into doing her full share of the regular 
team work. Never let a foal suck milk from a warm mare. It sets up 
indigestion and starts scours. Keep a bucket of water in the boxstall 
so the foal may take a drink whenever he wants it.” 
After foaling, Axe 38 advises that the teats be first of all examined 
for opening. He emphasizes the necessity of carefully selecting and 
regulating the amount of the feed to be given during the first twenty- 
four hours. Warm oatmeal or linseed gruel is recommended as the first 
diet to be given, to be mixed with a pint of good ale in case of exhaus¬ 
tion resulting from prolonged parturition. Four to six ounces of whisky 
may take the place of ale, should the latter fail in its action. Following 
the above mixture a little scalded bran with crushed oats should be fed. 
Afterwards the mare may be supplied with liberal quantities of rich 
and nutritive diet, which should consist largely of green feeds. He rec¬ 
ommends also the cleaning of the udder and tail for the first few days 
after foaling. The udder should be sponged and the tail washed and 
cleaned. Both the mare and foal should be protected from cold and wet 
environment, particularly from the harmful effects of the easterly and 
northwesterly winds, during the first two days after foaling. They should 
be turned out to grass as soon as the weather is favorable, and in doing 
so for the first time the sun must be out, the ground dry and the wind 
not too strong and blowing in a favorable direction. It is advocated to 
give a couple of feeds of crushed oats daily to those mares which foal 
as three-year-olds or to old ones having scant supply of milk, during two 
or three weeks after they have been turned out or as long as the grass is 
of insufficient growth. 
It is brought out that both the mare and foal should be kept in the 
boxstall during the first three or four days after foaling in the early 
part of the season when the weather is rather cold. Turning them out 
into a small, well-sheltered enclosure for a few hours in the midday 
should be their first taste of outdoor life, and later on when the weather 
permits they may stay outside for a longer time. They should always be 
housed at night until the sun shines bright and the days grow longer. 
Meanwhile artificial feeding should still be insisted upon. 82 
Wallace 43 advocates that the puerperal mare be given frequent small 
drinks of natural water into which a little oatmeal has been added. To¬ 
gether with this the mare should be fed succulent and digestible food. 
He calls attention to the fact that the mare should be “clean” an hour 
or two after parturition, and in case this fails and the afterbirth hangs 
for 8 hours assistance should be rendered by which a well-washed hand 
and arm which is moistened with carbolic oil or carbolic soap and 
water is inserted and the afterbirth detached and removed before de¬ 
composition takes place. The so-called “Hanging cleansing” disease is 
claimed to prove fatal if neglected and is contagious. In case this has 
become established on a farm, Wallace recommends for its eradication 
the temporary cessation of breeding operations, the disinfection of horses 
and the liming of the pastures. It is claimed that such feeds as a mix¬ 
ture of steamed barley, Indian corn, a few beans and bran, or succulence, 
as those available roots during the season, stimulates the flow of milk 
before grass becomes available, which should, however, be given at a 
temperature of not higher than 60° F. It is pointed out that some breed¬ 
ers resort to the practice of breeding half of the mares so as to foal in 
November by means of which the pressure of work early in the spring 
is much lessened because mares bred then could be so managed that milk 
secretion could be induced to maintain sufficient supply for the foals by 
feeding them roots or steamed feeds. The same authority is of the 
