84 
PURE BRED DRAFT HORSES 
castor oil and discontinue the milk for a couple of feeds, giving the 
sugar and limewater as before but substituting plain water for the milk, 
or feed nothing at all. Foals reared by hand will scour more or less, but 
the castor oil will generally fix them up all right. 
“As the foal grows older day by day the quantity of milk fed may be 
increased and the number of feeds decreased until according to his thrift 
he may be fed first six times a day and then four times. If he is 
carried along nicely he may at the end of three weeks be fed the milk and 
limewater or milk alone from a bucket, eliminating the sugar, but he 
should never be given all the milk he will drink at that age. Watch close¬ 
ly for signs of scouring, which are a sure sign of indigestion, and cut 
down on the quantity of milk fed for a day. Give castor oil as before 
only in three or four-ounce doses. Always have fresh water so the foal 
may drink if he is thirsty. 
“A foal should begin to nibble at grain when he is around a month 
old, sometimes earlier. His first food should be oatmeal. He should be 
allowed such trifling quantity of this as he will eat. It will only be a 
very little at first. When he is six weeks old a little bran may be added. 
At two months old some sweet skim milk may be substituted for part of 
the new milk and so on until when he is three months old the orphan 
foal may have about all the sweet skim milk he wants three times a day. 
He will then be eating plenty of grain and grass and he should have hay 
if he wants it. Let him have grass as soon as he will eat it. Never 
feed sour milk or sweet milk from unclean vessels. Keep him in a lot 
near the house and give him company if it is only a runty calf. Pet him 
and coddle him all of the time that can be spared and in general treat 
him as every orphan should be treated—with loving kindness and care. 
Never confine him closely in a stall. Let him run. The rearing of a 
motherless foal is mostly in the man or woman who essays the job.” 
Wilcox 101 makes the following remarks regarding the raising of foals 
by hand: “Colts to be raised by hand should receive fresh, warm cow’s 
milk with a tablespoonful of sugar to each quart of milk. This ad¬ 
dition of sugar is desirable on acount of the fact that mare’s milk con¬ 
tains more sugar than cow’s milk and less fat. For this reason it is 
not best to use milk which contains more than four per cent of fat. 
Colts may be given a pound or less of suitable cow’s milk five to ten 
times daily. Fresh separator milk may be substituted as with calves and 
some grain may be fed. Colts may be taught to drink in the same man¬ 
ner as calves within two months. Some feeders recommend the addition 
of one fresh egg stirred into the milk daily for the first few weeks. If 
the colts are to obtain their greatest development they should be fed 
grain as soon as they will eat it. For this purpose oats and bran are 
the best. Corn is not desirable for young colts since it does not contain 
sufficient protein.” 
Axe 38 says: “The most suitable milk for this purpose [for orphan foal 
raising] will be obtained from a heifer a week after calving, or if the foal 
has not sucked its dam it would be an advantage to procure a supply for 
the first 36 hours from a cow just calved, in order to awaken the bowels 
and provoke discharge of their contents. 
“At first the proportion of water to cow’s milk should be one part of 
the former to two of the latter, but as time goes on one part to three 
will be found more to the purpose, and later water may be excluded al¬ 
together. 
“To maintain natural temperature (100° F) it should be drawn from a 
cow into a vessel previously warmed, and afterwards diluted with water 
raised to 100° F. At first half a pint should be given every half hour, 
and gradually increased as time goes on, while the intervals between 
meals may be extended accordingly.” 
Sanders’s 40 dictum in the raising of the orphan foal also supports the 
