The Mule: A Treatise on the Breeding, Training, and Uses to Which He May Be PutRiley, Harvey
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The Mule: A Treatise on the Breeding, Training, and Uses to Which He May Be Put
Riley, Harvey
Mules
No. 14 is the off-wheel mule of a six-mule team. I had this mule
photographed for the purpose of showing the effects of hitching animals
so short to the team that the swingle-tree will strike or rest on their
hocks. I referred to this great evil in another place. This mule is but
six years old, sixteen hands high, and weighs nearly sixteen hundred
pounds. Aside from the hocks, she is the best made and the best looking
mule in the park; and is also a remarkably good worker. You will notice,
however, that the caps of her hocks are so swollen and calloused by the
action of the swingle-tree as to make them permanently disfigured. The
position I have placed this mule in, as relates to the wagon wheel, is
the proper position to put all wild, green, contrary or stubborn mules
in when they are hard to bridle.
This is the severest use to which a lariat can be put on mule or horse.
The person using it, however, should be careful to see that it sets well
back to the shoulder of the animal. I refer now to the part of the loop
that is around the neck. The end of the lariat should always be held by
a man, and not made fast to any part of the wagon, so that if the animal
falls or throws himself, you can slack up the lariat and save him from
injury. Three applications of the buck will conquer them so thoroughly
that you will have little trouble afterwards. Be careful to keep the
lariat, in front, as high as the mule's breast; and see also that they
are pulled up close to the front wheel before pulling it through the
hind wheel.
DISEASES COMMON TO THE MULE, AND HOW THEY SHOULD BE TREATED.
The mule does not differ materially from the horse in the diseases he is
afflicted with. He however suffers less from them, owing to lack of
sensibility. It may be useful here to make a few remarks on the various
diseases he is subject to, and to recommend a course of treatment which
I have practiced and seen practiced, and which I believe is the best
that can be applied.
DISTEMPER IN COLTS.
This disease is peculiar to young mules. Its symptoms develop with
soreness and swelling of the glands of the throat, a cough, difficulty
of swallowing, discharging at the nostrils, and general prostration. If
not properly treated it is surely fatal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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