The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1886-02-20
CARE OF COLTS.
The Kind of Food Required by Growing
Animals.

The Kind OF Food Required Dv uroW1h8
Animals.
A colt may be reared as easily as a
calf. This ease, however, often leads
to neglect, and the young animal is
left to rear itself and do the best it can
upon the refuse of the horse stable.
This is contrary to common sense and
economy. A young animal really
needs mere care and better treatment
than an old one,i nasmuch as the old
animal has matured its growth and
needs merely sustenance, while the
young is making growth and requires
not only food enough to support life
but also to furnish matter wherewith
the growing frame is built up. There
is a good deal in breed, but more in the
food of an animal. Breed gives the
capability and power to DO what can
be done with the materials furnished.
1t can not be a substitute for the mate
rails, otherwise something could be
made from nothing. When n says a
thoroughbred COW, for instance, will
produce a pound Of fat from a quantity
of food which has less than a pound Of
fat in it, the claimant may be justly
considered to lie under a mistake, and
give to breed more than he is warrant
ed in doing. And yet this mistake has
been and is frequently made, and peo-
pie have been led to believe that a
thoroughbred animal requires less food
or care than a so-called scrub does to
do as well as this will.
On the contrary, we must believe
that feeding has greatly helped breed
ing and manage our stock on the basis
that good blood needs more food and
better care than cold blood, and the
high breeding tends to nothing more
than to this, viz, that it increases the
capacity of an animal for food and its
necessity for careful treatment, and
gives it the ability to digest and assim-
ilate more nutriment than the common
bred animals, turning all this food,
however, to good account and profit.
This is as it should be and is Just and
right. But it should be well under
stood, and the owner of a good colt. of
which he desires to make a valuable
horse either for use or sale, must act
upon this rule and give the young ami
NAL all the most nutritive food it can
digest, and lodge and care for it in the
very best manner.
The yearling colts need liberal feed
ing. Approaching their second year,
they are taking on the form and figure
of the matured animal, and this form
should be carefully encouraged by good
feeding and warmth. Coarse bulky
food tends to make an animal ''pot-
bellied' and hollow-backed, because
it exaggerates the stomach and bowels
ind so fills up the abdomen, while it
.discourages the growth of muscle and
SO weakens the loins and rump. A
colt should show only a slightly un-
dulating line from the withers to the
rump and a broad loin in which the
backbone is marked by a slight
depression instead of a ridge. This
form once fixed on the colt will never
be permanently lost, and if for want of
feed the flesh is lost at any time the
of line and f~ullness of muscle
will return on better feeding. The colt
should not be emasculated until its
third year. This gives it the full
shoulder, strong, muscular and arched
neck, and robustness of form which
not only seems to, but really does, make
a strong and vigorous animal.
The feeding at this period of its life
be mainly oats. Oats contain
material, in abundance, of which
bones and muscle are made. 1t is an
old story of the Scotchman who re-
torted to the charge that his country
men lived on oatmeal, which was
horses food, by asking where else
could be found such horses or such
men. The retort was just, for the
Scotch Clydesdale horses, reared upon
bats, have the precise form, exagger-
ited, it is true, by their massive build,
which every horse except the racer
have to a greater or less degree
with its purpose in life. The
work horse will need a greater muscu-
ar development than the roadster, but
whatever of it is desired it is best Sc
'ured by a food of oats and but little
'orn or hay, But the grooming must
lot be forgotten, for this helps very
much to develop the muscular growth
nd give it firmness and solidity.-M
Times.
A MYSTERIOUS TREE. {