The farmers' medical dictionary for the diseases of animals / By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq. F.R.S.

  • Cuthbert Johnson
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The farmers' medical dictionary for the diseases of animals / By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq. F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cast four more of their foal-teeth, two in the upper and two in the lower jaw, one on each side the nippers, or middle teeth ; so that when you look into a horse’s mouth, and see the two middle teeth full-grown, and none of the foal- teeth, except the common teeth remaining, you may conclude he is four that year, about April or May. Some, indeed, are later colts, but that makes little alteration in the mouth. The tushes appear near the same time with the four last-mentioned teeth, sometimes sooner than these, and sometimes not till after a horse is full four years old; they are curved like the tushes of other animals, only in a young horse they have a sharp edge all round the top and on both sides, the inner part being some- what grooved and flattened, so as to incline to a hollow. When a horse’s tushes do not appear for some time after the foal-teeth are cast, and the new ones come in their room, it is generally owing to the foal-teeth having been pulled out before their time, by the breeders or dealers in horses, to make a colt of three years old appear like one of four, that he may be the more sale- able ; for when any one of the foal-teeth have been pulled o\it, the others soon come in their places; but the tushes having none that ])re- cede them, can never make their appearance till their proper time, which is when a horse is full four, or coming four; and therefore one of the surest marks to know a four-year old horse is by his tushes, which are then very small, and sharp on the top and edges.
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