A DR. AND CR. ACCOUNT OF HORSE BREEDING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1853, 27 May 1887, Page 8

A DR. AND CR. ACCOUNT OF HORSE BREEDING.

We have before us what may be called the balance sheet of a very successful brood mare. It is given in a letter to the editor of Farm and Home by a North Lancashire farmer, apro})os of Colonel Kavenhill's lecture on the supply of horses for the British army. In the year 1868 his father bought a mare (about three-parts bred), which had been doing cab work, &c, in Manchester for some eight years, and was very "groggy." He gave her a summer's run, and then put her to work on the farm, and she turned out to be a very good worker. In the summer of 1871 she was ' served by a thoroughbred horse, and brought him a fine horse foal, after which she bred seven other foals — two colts and five fillies. The youngters were broken in when they were three years old ; some were worked on the farm, a little, and the others ridden for a year only, and then sold when four years old. In the balance-sheet the keep, shoeing, &c, of the mare are not mentioned, as she well repaid these by the work she did. She would be worked to within a week of foaling and put to it again three or four days after the event. The account then stands thus : — Dr. £ s. d. To cost of "mare ... ... ... 4 8 0 „ stallions' fee3 ... ... ... 20 0 0 „ breakers ... ... ... 24 0 0 „ keep of young horses until four years old, at £12 each per year ... 384 0 0 432 8 0 Balance (profit) ... ... 51 12 0 £184 0 0 OK. & s. d. Horse No. 1 ... ... ... 70 0 0 l'Mlly „ 2 ... ... ... 54 0 0 Horse „ 3 ... ... ... 95 0 0 „ 4 ... ... ... 70 0 0 Filly „ 5 ... ... ... 50 0 0 „ „ I) ... ... ... 40 0 0 „ „ 7 ... ... ... 52 10 0 „ 8 ... ... ... 52 10 0 Total ... ... ...£lB4 0 0 Now, here was evidently a right good mare, bought remarkably cheap, that earned her own keep, and was exceptionally lucky as a breeder ; yet where would the balance have been if her produce had been sold for £35 a head ? Eight horses £35 — £280 ; taking this from £432 Bs, the cost, we have a loss on the transaction of £152 8s ; and if the mare had been kept for breeding purposes only the loss would have been greater.

"We are quite aware that this striking illustration is not needed to prove to practical men that they cannot rear horses profitably to be sold at £35 when four years old ; but Irom the utterances of most public men who speak and write on the subject, they appear to think farmers are great fools not to breed horses to supply the army at regulation prices. — Farmers' Gazette.