TENDING HORSES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 80, 16 January 1936, Page 8

TENDING HORSES

TASK OF GETTING THEM FIT. GROOMING, EXERCISE, FEEDING. ESSENTIALS TO HEALTH. I consider it takes at least three months to get an unfit horse into full working condition. In the case of young horses brought in from grass it may take a good deal longer, states a writer in the "Farmer and Stockbreeder." The important part grooming plays in getting horses into condition and the maintenance of health, is hot generally realised. The skin helps to get rid of tlie waste products of the body, and to regulate the body and temperature, and needs to be kept in full activity by the stimulating effects of a good stiff brush and plenty of elbow grease, applied at .least once a day. I have heard it said that a good grooming is a third of the feed, but although this may not be strictly accurate, there is no doubt that grooming is most essential to health.

Exercise is necessary to develop the muscles, strengthen the heart, and clear the wind, and tone up the system o-enerally, but it must at first be carried out at a slow pace, and for not too long at a time. The same with the work horse, out of. condition, An hour or two of light work is quite sufficient to begin with, and neither exercise nor work should be increased in severity until the allotted task can bo completed without distress. .Feeding is a difficult subject to say much about, but the average horse in full work needs about 151 b of corn and 151 b of hay, and a light horso about 101 b of each. Naturally, one would commence with considerably less corn, when first starting to get an unfit horse into condition, and only increase it by slow degrees and in proportion to the work that is being done. The staple foods are crushed oats'and bran, but in the case of thin and run-down horses, linseed cake meal makes a valuable addition, while a few slices of mangold or a pound or two of carrots, is a welcomo extra. Clover hay unless particularly well saved and free from dust is best replaced by good meadow hay, for although clover hay has a high feeding value, it is none too good for the wind. Fit horses that are at hard work and failing in condition in spite 'Of a sufficient "ration of oats and hay, need tho addition of an 'energy producing food to tho ration, and for this purposo about 41b of oats may bo replaced by 41b of cracked beans. Unfit and thin horses that hang fire during their conditioning will often respond more quickly if beans, or better still white-fish meal, is added to thenration, the latter usually being well taken, when small amounts, say Jib per day to begin with, are well mixed in with the bran and oats.