Domestic Animals: History and description of the horse, mule, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry and farm dogs; with directions for their management, breeding, crossing, rearing, feeding, and preparation for a profitable market; also their diseases and remedies. Together with full directions for the management of the dairy.Allen, Richard Lamb
Science
Domestic Animals: History and description of the horse, mule, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry and farm dogs; with directions for their management, breeding, crossing, rearing, feeding, and preparation for a profitable market; also their diseases and remedies. Together with full directions for the management of the dairy.
Allen, Richard Lamb
Domestic animals
The mules sent to the Mexican possessions from our western states,
Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky, are considered of much more value
than such as are bred from the native (usually wild) mares. The
difference probably arises, in part, from the Mexicans using jacks so
inferior to most of the stock animals used by the citizens of those
states.
Mare mules are estimated in those regions at one-third more than horse
mules. The reason assigned for this is, that after a day's journey of
excessive fatigue, there is a larger quantity of blood secreted in the
bladder, which the female, owing to her larger passage, voids at once,
and without much apparent suffering, while the male does not get rid of
it, frequently, till after an hour of considerable pain. The effect of
this difference is seen in the loss of flesh and strength in the male to
an extent far beyond that of the female.
_The method of reducing refractory mules_ in the northern Mexican
possessions, is for the person to grasp them firmly by the ears, while
another whips them severely on the fore-legs and belly.
_Estimated annual saving to the United States from the employment of
mules in the place of horses._--To sum up the advantages of working
mules over horses, we shall have as advantages: 1. They are more easily,
surely, and cheaply raised. 2. They are maintained, after commencing
work, for much less than the cost of keeping horses. 3. They are not
subject to many of the diseases of the horse, and to others only in a
mitigated degree, and even these are easily cured in the mule. 4. They
attain a greater age, and their average working years are probably twice
that of the horse.
In 1840, there were reported to be 4,335,669 horses and mules in the
Union, no discrimination having been made between them. Suppose the
total number at the present time is 4,650,000, and that of these 650,000
are mules. If we deduct one-fourth, supposed to be required for the
purposes of breed, fancy-horses, &c., we shall have 3,000,000 horses,
whose places may be equally well supplied by the same number of mules.
We have seen that Mr. Hood, of Maryland, estimates the expense of a
working horse at $44 per annum, (not an over estimate for the Atlantic
states,) while that of the mule is $22. The difference is $22, which it
is proper to reduce to meet the much lower rate of keeping at the West.
If we put the difference at $10, we shall find the saving in the keep,
shoeing, farriery, &c., by substituting mules for the 3,000,000 horses
that can be dispensed with, will be $30,000,000 per annum. But this is
not all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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