The saddles and bridles, with the bits and stirrups, are to be wiped when they are taken off, and are so left till the first opportunity, when they are to be thoroughly cleaned and put away.
If a gig, chaise, or other carriage has been used in the morning, it will require to be cleaned and got ready as soon as possible.
Such horses as are at home at twelve o’clock, are, at that hour, to be watered and fed again, and just wiped over, but not thoroughly cleaned, as in the morning; their manes and tails are, however, to be combed and properly laid with the mane-comb and water brush.
When the Groom’s horses and carriages come in, in the evening, he attends to his horses first, washes their feet and legs and rubs them quite dry, before he cleans them. He afterwards cleans his gig, or whatever it may be by day-light, if there be time, or at any rate, he has to get his harness cleaned. About eight o’clock the stable man repairs to the stable, for the last time, cleans it out, waters, feeds, and rubs down the horses, litters them up, bandages their legs, stops their feet, (if necessary) and racks them up for the night.
Wages 22l. to 25l. with, generally, two livery suits, and two stable dresses a year.
TO MAKE OATS PROVE DOUBLY NUTRITIOUS TO HORSES.
Instead of grinding the oats, break them in a mill; and the same quantity will prove doubly nutritious. Another method is, to boil the corn, and give the horses the liquor in which it has been boiled; the result will be, that instead of six bushels in a crude state, three bushels, so prepared, will be found to answer, and to keep the animals in superior vigour and condition.
SORES AND BRUISES.
Over the whole sore, or where the part is bruised, or where there is a tendency to suppuration, a poultice should be applied and kept on by suitable bandages. The poultice may be made of any kind of meal, fine bran, bruised linseed, or of mashed turnips, carrots, &c. The following has been found useful as a common poultice: Fine bran, 1 quart; pour on it a sufficient quantity of boiling water to make a thin paste; to this add of linseed powder enough to give it a proper consistence. The poultice may be kept on for a week or ten days, or even longer, if necessary, changing it once or twice a day; and cleaning the wound, when the poultice is removed, by washing it by means of a soft rag or linen cloth, with water not more than blood warm, (some sponge is too rough for this purpose); or, where the wound is deep, the water may be injected into it by a syringe, in order to clean it from the bottom.
Ointment.