WEANING A FOAL.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2081, 3 January 1879, Page 2 (Supplement)

WEANING A FOAL.

The books indicate that it is au easy matter to wean a foal, and very little is aaid about it. One of my mares had an abundance of milk, the other was not properly treated before foaling and to that I attribute the fact that sha gave a small quantity. She j foaled after having baeu only a weok or ten days at pasture, and both she and the colt suffered, as I suppose, from the relaxing effect of the change of diet, which occureu just when she moat needed her strength and rigor. When the foal of the other mare was seven months old, we weaned it, and learned two or three interesting facts. One is, that it would not have been difficult to take one foal away and give the mare another for she allowed the one not her own to suck repeatedly, her own being absent. I have frequently regretted not having put the little colt with the big mare at that time for a permanency. This mare gave what stnick me as an enormous quantity of milk. The foal was removed at about D o'clock ; by noon, her udnder seeming much distended, it was milked out, and two quarts of milk were obtaiud. It was not measured, so we may fairly say it amounted to three pints. In about three hours it was full aj<ain, and a similar quantity was drawn. This seemed to be all that the udder would contain, and about the time required to secrete it. At this rate the mare was giving twelve quarts of milk a day, and very likely more, for the almost constant draft which a foal makes is a constant stimulant to milk secretion. The European goat milkers, who drive their little flocks from door to door, and milk them as they sell the milk, draining them of the last drop many times a day, get a great deal more milk that if the goats were milked but twice a day. We 'fouund that the mare above alluded to would get along without being milked, except when she was wauted for work, when it was of course best and most humane to empty her udder. It, however, was next to impossible to keep her foal, or the foal away from her, if both were free and within sound of each others calls. The mine would manage to break down almost any fence, and the foal would leap almost any feuce on the farm, so one of them had to be stabled all the time for nearly two months.