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Feeding the Ancient Horse - Printable Version

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Feeding the Ancient Horse - Steven James - 11-29-2016

Feeding the Ancient Horse

 
https://www.academia.edu/8115899/Feeding_the_Ancient_Horse
 
 


RE: Feeding the Ancient Horse - Michael Kerr - 11-29-2016

Good article, thanks for linking it. Cavalry horses were expensive to feed & maintain. Vegetius, although more famous for his military treatise was actually a vet who knew about the horses and horse breeds of his time period and wrote a book Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae (a guide to veterinary medicine). It is probably the only list of breeds in antiquity and he lists 16 breeds but the list is probably incomplete. He classifies breeds by their land  of origin (like Hunnic, Hunnisci, Hispani and Numidae to name a few and he also had a section about the care, feeding and stabling of horses and the problems arising from the over-feeding horses with barley causing laminitis although he refers to it as gout. (If the horse was not responding to purgation and bleeding, he recommended castration “for gout seldom affects eunuchs”). Smile


Regards
Michael Kerr