190 
PURE BRED DRAFT HORSES 
should be regularly cleaned and occasionally disinfected. Arrange the 
quarters, if possible, so that the colts may go in or out at will, except in 
stormy weather, when a gate may be used to keep them within shelter, 
where they will be out of drafts, but supplied with an abundance of fresh 
air. If the gate to the shelter opens out on several acres of grassland, 
where the colts may play tag and nibble a little lunch between their two 
regular daily feeds of grain, there will be some very happy and probably 
very profitable colts. And profitable colts are the controlling and com¬ 
pelling argument in favor of the use of draft mares on the farm.” 
The Robisons give a lengthy account of the feeding and management of 
colts in vogue at the Leslie Farms, as follows: “The earliest foals are 
taught to eat at 4 weeks old by putting a little bran, whole oats, shelled 
corn and alfalfa-molasses meal in a little feedbox just out of reach of the 
mares. In the pasture a feed trough is kept in a pen, with a creep pro¬ 
vided, so that foals can go in, but the mares cannot. After the first foals 
learn to eat, they are fed twice a day in this trough, and the later foals 
learn to eat by imitation. Sometimes they begin at 2 weeks old. They 
are given all the grain they will eat twice a day, and, after they get well 
accustomed to eating, the feed is mainly oats. There is no danger of 
overloading them with fat or injuring the joints when they are running 
out day and night and get plenty of exercise. 
“All the foals that are as much as 4 months old are weaned about Octo¬ 
ber 1. To do this each mare is tied at the feed trough in a long shed and 
her foal is haltered and tied alongside with a rope it cannot break. Of 
course, it pulls and tugs at it for a while, but no damage is done. The 
mare is right there and the youngster soon settles down to good behavior. 
As the foals are all thoroughly accustomed to dry feed, they do not miss 
the milk much, but go right on eating and growing. The mares are fed 
timothy hay alone and milked dry twice a day for a few days. It helps if 
one greases the udders with warm lard. After the milk is dried up the 
mares are turned out on pasture and fed grain in preparation for winter. 
The weanlings are given the open shed for shelter and run on pasture for 
>sixty days, with grain. They are likely to get wormy at this time and 
rock salt is a useful preventive. 
“Beginning in December the colts are put in boxstalls, two or three to¬ 
gether, at night, and turped out to pasture in the daytime. They are fed 
oats, bran, shelled corn, chopped cane, oil meal and alfalfa hay, all they 
will eat. The colts grow faster and develop a greater feeding capacity on 
alfalfa hay than they used to have when we fed mixed timothy and clover. 
Their grain is principally oats. The first winter is a critical time with a 
colt. If fed so as to grow well up to the age of 12 months, the colt may be 
kept going easily enough on good pasture in summer and rich hay in win¬ 
ter, supplemented with enough grain to maintain a good degree of flesh, 
so that there is no lack of nourishment at any time in the year.” 
“When the foal is 30 days old,” says Lee, “put some oats where it can 
nibble at them; increase the amount as it cleans them up, until oats may 
be left in the box for the foal to eat any time.” And further on, he writes: 
“As time goes on and the baby is left at the stable, try turning it out in a 
small pasture with a few calves or foals where it can eat grass and get 
plenty of exercise. When the foal is 2 months old it will not be necessary 
to let it nurse between regular meal times, but you will have a better colt 
if you do. After the foals are 6 months old and weaned, turn them on 
alfalfa pasture, if possible, and feed them grain twice each day. When 
the pasture is killed by frost or is too closely cropped, take them to their 
winter quarters, preferably a place where they can have plenty of exer¬ 
cise all day and a shed to shelter them from storms at night. Do not start 
to put them in the closed barn or shed; let them run in and out at any 
time; have plenty of clean alfalfa where they can run to it, and feed grain 
twice a day. 
