BREEDING MARES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1288, 5 November 1896, Page 5

BREEDING MARES.

A great many farmers are in the habit of giving mares little or no work when carrying the fo < 1, but once the foal is aide to stand, think the mare is able to do full work and raise the foal well in addition, says an American paper. The reverse is true. Mares, either for fast or slow work, are better able to produce a healthy and vigorous foal if given ordinary work up to the eighth month of gestation, and thereafter, until three days before foaling, daily exercise at light work. After foaling the mare should be on pasture until the foal is four months old ; nor should she then be put to exhaustive work, nor at any time should she do work liable to strain or otherwise injure herself. It is thought by some persons that after foaling the mare should meet the horse on the third or fourth day. It should never be allowed. The proper time, if the mare goes on well, is to try her on the ninth day after foaling, but she should be again tried on the eighteenth or nineteenth day succeeding the ninth day ; that is to say, the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth day after foaling. This latter time would always apply if it were not for the fact

that some mares, if ready for the horse on the ninth day, and not covered by him, may remain cold during the whole whole time of suckling the foal. The mare should also be submitted to the horse ever} 7 ninth or tenth day for five times ; if she continues to refuse, ic is pretty sure she is all right. Young mares, say three years old, and mares that, have had a season’s rest, are supposed to raise colts ; that is to say, resembling the sire. But there is a great difference in mares. Some breed after the horse notably, and some do not. I once ownel a handsome, active mare of great staying power blood not known —that I bought at 3 years of age, and that for nine years raised me a colt annually by Young Bellfounder and by a Copper-bottom horse, the colts taking after the sires every time. She was never worked except under the saddle.

A mare should always be in thriving condition when bred ; nor after breeding should she do hard work for two or three days succeeding ; nor should she be bred after exhaustion from overwork. A mare having a foal by her side should not be allowed to be unduly excited by the horse. Young, timid mares should be carefully handled, and coaxed without undue excitement. Older mares that are fractious should be firmly handled, but never beaten. In fact, the peculiarities of the animal must be carefully studied. If she must be confined, let it be in a proper frame. I never allow the use of hopples. If a mare sucking a foal is unduly excited it will tell on the foal, often producing serious bowel complaints and colic.

In relation to the regular work of the mare during the time of suckling the foal, after the birth of the foal she should have at least four weeks of rest. If within this time she again fret with foal, or it is determined not to breed her the current season, if she cannot be allowed a season at grass, she may have moderate, slow work, but never such as to unduly heat her. It must be remembered that the drain on her system is equal to average work, and hence this doable work will tell both upon herself and the colt. Grass she must have to make milk. When the foal is three or four months old, and after the colt lias been taught to walk quietly along, tied at her side, she may go to town in. a light waggon, or draw light loads to market, or chore about the farm. She may do light raking or cultivating, and other work of which there is always plenty to do on the farm, such as bringing up the cattle, carrying water to the engine of the thresher, or drawing light loads of grain to the barn, but while given all the time she wants to get a fair amount of grass daily, she must be sustained with grain, and the foal should also have what oats it will eat, for thus you will raise a colt worth mere than it otherwise would be worth at, 3 years old, and you may also save the mare from complications that will disable her from raising healthy foals.