EXAMINING HORSES' LEGS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 196, 29 November 1872, Page 3

EXAMINING HORSES' LEGS.

In examining: the legs of a horse, ihe purchaser should first stand with bis face-to'the broadside of the horse as he stands on flat ground, and observe whether he res*is perpendicularly t>n all his. legs,-having the natural proportion of his weight on each leg srraightly', squarely, and directly; or whether he stands with all his legs straddled:outside of their true aplomb, or with all drawn together under the centre of his belly, as if it were trying to stick them all into a hat; or lastly whether he favours one or mere of his legs, either by pointing it forward or by placing it any position in which no. •weight at all, or a very small stress of weight, is thrown upon it. A horse may apparently favor one foot accidentally from a casual impatience or restlessness. He is not, therefore, to be rejected because he points a toe once or twice. But if he seem to do so, he should be constantly brought back to the original position in which he must bear equally on each foot; when, if he be found constantly to favor the same foot in the same manner, something serious must be suspected, which gives the horse uneasiness and pain, though not sufficient in degree to produce present lameness. It the toe of a fore foot be persistently pointed forward, disease of the navicular, commonly known as the coffin-bone, is to be suspected, tha*; which no worse or less "curable disease exists. Kboth the fore feet are pro-

truded and the hind feet thrown back, as it" the horse were about to stale, he h«i3 probably been at some time foundered. If he stands with all his feet _drawn together under him, he is generally entirely U3ed up, and what is called groggy. It' he stands with one or both his knees bent forward and his legs tremulous, or with both his fetlock joints knuckled forward over the baaterns one may be sure that however gOv)d he may once have been, he has been knocked to pieces or injured by hard driving and hard work. Supposing the horse now to stand square and true on all his legs, leaning his weight on each and all indifferently, with one gl.ince at the horse in profile the side examination may be held as complete and satisfactory. That glance will ascertain whether the posterior outline of the hock-joint is nearly perpendicular, or whether it is angular or has a convex curvilinear protuberance immediately above the commencement .of the shank-bone. 'This curvilinear protuberance, if large, is a curb which will produce lameness, though not of an incurable sort; if not large, it is either the trace of a curb which has been cured, but may at-.any-time .return, or "an indication of tendency to throw out curbs on bei:ig put to hard work, especially in heavy ground. Horses which ha e been (urbed, or which have ~ curb-shaped hocks, are generally to be avoided. —North British Agriculturalist.