Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1892 — LIVE STOCK. [ARTICLE]

LIVE STOCK.

An Unruly But'* An Illinois man writes to ask our advice with regard to an unruly bull, and also requests us to give some plan by which bulls may be trained to docility. So far as our correspondent’s bull is concerned, we would saw off his horns. He says he is exceedingly dangerous to handle. We do not think that in such cases even the sentimental opponents of dehorning would object to the “mutilation.” At all events the life of a human being is of much more value than a pair of horns, and we should off with them. It is true that a change of management often changes the temper of a bull. We have owned bulls that became ugly because they are not well treated, and when we have personally taken charge of them we have succeeded by kind and considerate yet firm management in making them quite decent. Yet the fact must be recognized that when a bull becomes obstreperous he must always be handled with care, for he is likely to break out on slight provocation. In fact there is not excuse for carelessness in handling any bull. The only method that we know of to train a bull to docility, is to treat the animal kindly but firmly from the beginning, but remembering all the time what we have already stated, that you must be on your guard with the best of bulls. A bull is a good deal like a dog, which will go along for years as mild mannered a creature as ever lived, and then suddenly fall to eating somebody up.—Western Rural. Barefoot Horse*. How many farmers use their team barefoot? What is the use of having a team shod if they will work as well not shod? Nature will care for the hoofs in nine cases out of ten, so that the growth yvill always equal the wear, and a tough, springy hoof will grow where a hard, brittle one was. I had a road mare that interfered badly, and no shoeing or use of boots could keep her from being lame half the time. I took her shoes off, rasped down the edges of her hoofs and drove her as freely as before. In three months she moved without a limp, her hoofs were sound and free from chipping and seemed to have worn to suit her way of going. I used her almost every day on all sorts of roads for two winters and one summer, in dust, ice, snow, and frozen mud, in the country and on city pavements and she traveled as well and freely as any horse, and did not interfere, and her hoofs stood the wear perfectly, while on ice she traveled as well as a sharply shod horse.—Correspondence Rural New Yorker.