After June or July colts should be separated from fillies unless the colts have been castrated, and they must be put inside good fences, this being something of a puzzle to a farmer with a few paddocks and poor fences. Consequently, a second or third-rate young stallion often causes a good deal of trouble, in fact, more than he leaves a return for. For the second winter the young Shires still need a bit of help. If they are to make, or are likely to make, anything out of the common they should be fed liberally, otherwise a feed of chaff and corn once a day will do, with a bit of hay to munch at night, but it must be good wholesome forage. During their second spring, or when two years old, they should be put to work as described in a former chapter, after which they are able at least to earn their keep; the cost of rearing on the lines indicated up to this age will be found to be considerable, so that a good saleable animal is needed to make the business a profitable one; but I have kept the rearing of good sound Shires in view, not crocks or mongrels. The effect of the war on the cost of feeding horses has led the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to issue a leaflet telling horse owners of substitutes for oats. When it was written beans were relatively cheaper, so was maize, while rice-meal was recommended to form part of the mixture, owing to its lower cost. Those who have fed horses are aware that they do not like any food which is of a dusty nature. It sticks in their nostrils, causing them annoyance, if not discomfort, which a horse indicates by blowing its nose frequently. Any kind of light meal should therefore be fed either with damp chaff or with pulped roots, well mixed with the feed in the manner described elsewhere. If mangolds have to be purchased at £1 per ton, they help to make the meals more palatable. The farmer who grows a variety of corn and roots is usually able to prepare and blend his own foods so as to make a diet on which horses will thrive although oats are scarce. In Scotland boiled swedes or turnips are largely used for farm horses, but coal and labour are now scarce as well as horse corn. CHAPTER VII CARE OF THE FEET There is no part of a Shire to which more attention should be paid than the feet, and it is safe to say that the foot of the present-day cart-horse is infinitely better than were those of his ancestors of forty, or even twenty, years ago. The shape as well as the size has been improved till the donkey-shaped hoof is rarely met with, at least in show animals of this breed.