Farming for Self-Sufficiency-Independece on a 5-acre farm
(Page 7 of 9)
If the horse is working hard though you must pay him with
oats, crushed maize or other corn. A big plough horse,
working a full day, needs as much as 20 Lbs. of oats or
other corn a day. For light work perhaps half that. A cob,
say of 5 feet, would do with perhaps three or five pounds
for light work, ten for heavy continuous work, plus hay,
and/or straw. Bran is also good. Eight to ten pounds of hay
is about right, with no grass: less with grass. Feeding
should be at least three times a day, and the horse should
be given plenty of time to eat: at least a full hour. A
working horse should be groomed once a day. When the horse
is not working he should not have corn, or if he does only
a very little. If you rest a hard-working horse you must
knock off his corn, otherwise he will get ill.
RELATED CONTENT
SELF-HEATING, SELF-COOLING HOUSE
July/August 1971
By Wendell Thomas
In 1948...
Medical Self-Care: The Seven Rules of Self-Care
Seven laws for better health, including home...
A simple easy to make barrel-shaped devise increases the light output....
Organic Valley is now producing pasture butter, a decadent cultured butter from grass-fed cattle. W...
Maintaining Health in Pasture Animals
December/January 1995
By the Mother Earth News e...
You must shoe your horse about once every six weeks,
whether you are working him or not. If you turn him out to
grass for a long period you had better pull the shoes off
him: if you leave them on, his feet will go on growing
under the shoes and he will go lame. Shoeing is a highly
skilled job and no unskilled person should tackle it. The
demand for the service of shoeing smiths is now insatiable,
in Britain at least, and this is a very good and profitable
profession for a young man to go in for. You get two pounds
per horse, and should easily be able to do ten in a day:
twenty pounds a working day and no rat-race is not to be
sneezed at: see if you can earn that by getting a degree in
philosophy.
BREEDING ...
The profitability of the smallholding horse can be
increased enormously if she is a good mare, and used for
breeding as well as work. Your mare may do any work for the
first six or seven months of pregnancy: then she should
only work in chains, for the shafts are uncomfortable for
her. She can be worked, with advantage to her health, right
up to foaling: many a mare has dropped her foal in the
field in which she has been ploughing, with no ill results.
After foaling the mare should be pampered a bit: a nice
warm bran mash for example, some oats, and she should be
turned out on to good fresh grass: if possible on which no
horses have been grazing for some time. She should not be
worked at all for at least six weeks, and then only be
given very light work for a few hours a day up to the time
of weaning. Before weaning she should not be kept away from
the foal for more than two or three hours. Weaning can be
at four months, but the later the better for the foal. When
you wean the foal you must keep him out of hearing of the
mare, on very good pasture, and then start working the mare
as hard as you like to help dry her milk off. Good summer
grass is ample for the foal, but when the first winter
comes you should give him perhaps a couple of pounds of
crushed oats and three or four pounds a day of good hay. If
you want a gelding get the vet, or a wise man, to come and
castrate him at about a year old, when the weather has
become milder after the winter but before the flies are
about. Foals on pasture should have their hoofs rasped down
every so often, so that the frog (the soft bit in the
middle) just rests on the ground.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
Next >>
