St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-09-05
THE COLT.
The Necessity of Proper Care of the Grow
ing Animal.


ing Animal.
Horses are kind of live stock which
are left largely to take care of them
selves in q certain sense. We busy our
selves about our cattle, sheep and swine.
How shall we feed--what shall we do to
make the calf. the lamb and the pig
more valuable? we ask time and
time again. But the colt comes,
grows and reaches maturity, under
about the same treatment that has been
common for hundreds of years. True |
enough the system of management that
is generally adopted is not a bad one
At all events it answers. But that is not |
quite enough in these days when we |
wish to produce perfection as nearly as
possible. Are our horses as good as
they might be if the growing
animals were fed at all times upon a |
strictly scientific basis? None of us
will give an affirmative answer to the |
question, if we properly understand the
effect of feeding. The horse is valuable
in proportion to the development of its
muscle. 4 weak horse is very poor
property strong horse is good prop |
ertY. Consequently the food given the
colt and young horse, and in fact the
mature horse, needs to be largely of the
muscle forming character. Their food
does not need, and must not contain, SO
large proportion of the carbonaceouS
elements as do those which are fed to
fesh-producing animals. In the latter
case CONSPICUOUS part of the object in
feeding is fat, while in the former case,
we want to produce only q moderate
amount of fat and great deal of mus
Gle. Very often the horse is fed entirely
too much corn. AS portion of the
horses food, and even of the colts,
corn is good, but to feed colt too much
of this specially fat-pr0ducing food, is
! ruinous. And in order to keep the mat
ter steadily before the reader, we again
! call attention, in this connection, to the
necessity of keeping the muscular and
+. bony systems up, in all animals and at
all times. This applies even to fatten-
! ing animals.
! Now when the colt is getting its food
from the dam, it is getting the following
| elements, which is the composition OF
| mares milk; Casein, $40 per cent; but
ter, $50; milk sugar, 1852; ash, .53, and
! water 90.05 per cent. In mares milk
the dry matter, that is food, is about ten
/ per cent, 9.95 per cent. TO be exact, and
something more than one-third of this is
casein. The milk of the mother Of the
colt, therefore, furnishes one part of
muscle, forming food to two parts Of the
/ carbonaceous elements. With this les
son of nature before us we make mis-
take when we feed too largely food
which contains so large @ proportion OF
starch, as corn, barley, etc. If the dam
/ gives sufficient milk, the colt win need
nothing else for six months. But if the
| mare should give an insufficient quantity,
it must be supplemented with something
else, for we think it must be stated as
fact whether it is always observable or
not. that colt that is insufficiently
nourished during the first six months of
its life, never RECEIVERS what it thus loses.
Its slowness of growth, under such cir
cumstances, is not the worst OF it. Its
digestion becomes weakened. The
stomach of the young animal, unless ex-
tended by sufficient quantity of food,
becomes contracted, and so when it is
weaned, it does not hold enough to
furnish the system with what it needs.
Young animals, it must be remembered,
cannot grow on nothing. tits their food
that gives them growth, and the more
food they utilize the more rapid will be
their growth.
Il the dam, after generous feeding to
that end, does not give enough milk to
satisfy the colt, the ration should be in
creased by giving cows milk, which is
nearly the same in composition TO that
of the mare. We advise giving fresh
milk first, under such circumstances, but
skim-milk may soon be given, and that
contains precisely the elements which
the growing system most stands in need
of. Two quarts a day, given in the
morning and at night, is about the
proper amount for colt two months
old. Some sweeten it little, and it is
a good plan, although but very little
sugar should be added. The colt may
! be allowed to eat oats as soon as it will,
and before it is weaned, we would give
it little linseed meal with oats, and
thus teach it to eat it. Linseed meal is
excellent food for a colt. One breeder
writes that he gives to a colt eight
, months old, a half pint of fax-seed
boiled in four quarts Of water, and then
two quarts of bran or oat meal boiled
with it, fed twice a day in equal parts.
| - The Stockn,dn.
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