At first the foal should be fed once an hour, but gradually the times of feeding may be reduced in number. Feed the milk blood warm, giving at first half a cupful at each meal and with it three tablespoonfuls of lime water to the pint of milk. The foal will take the milk readily from a large rubber nipple fitted on the neck of a feeding bottle which must be often well scalded. A kid glove thumb perforated and fitted over the spout of a small teapot will do almost as well as a rubber nipple and feeding bottle.
Hand-fed foals tend to scour. When such trouble starts withhold two or more feeds of milk, and give one to four tablespoonfuls of castor oil in milk, according to the severity of the attack and the size of the foal, and repeat the dose every time there is any derangement of the digestive organs.
Soon the foal may be fed but six times a day, then four times, and in a few weeks it will freely take milk and lime water from a clean pail. At this stage sugar may be omitted and the lime water be given only once a day. The secret of success is to feed a little milk often and to keep all utensils scrupulously sweet and clean. As soon as he will take to it, the foal may be allowed to lick oatmeal in small quantities; gradually increase the amount and add wheat bran. After six weeks give a little sweet skim-milk in place of a part of the new milk, and by increasing the amount day by day the foal may at three months old take skim-milk entirely and continue to drink it freely three or four times daily while eating grass, grain and bran.
It is commonly believed that corn silage cannot safely or profitably be fed to horses. Investigation shows that this belief is ill advised, for some horsemen feed silage successfully.
A noted Wisconsin breeder has used corn silage extensively as a feed for horses as a part of the winter ration during the past eighteen years. The number wintered each year averages about 100. His method is as follows:
In making silage for horses the corn is allowed to stand until nearly out of the milk, as better results have thus been obtained than when it is cut greener. The silo is filled as rapidly as possible, and when full is allowed to settle for four or five days, when it is again filled. Care is taken to pack the silage tightly around the walls.
