Horses and How They Grow

Horses are fun to ride, but they can be a lot of hard work. The first horse was the Eohippus. It was about the size of a fox. It can be traced over a period of 60 million years. From America they spread across the world. Then 8-10,000 years ago the horse be-came extinct in America. It was reintroduced by the Spanish

Conquistadors in the 16th century. The herds of mustangs in north

America is descended from horses introduced by the Spanish in the 16th century.

Baby horses are born from a mare horse. The mare holds the baby for 11 or 12 months. Most mares will have 5 or 6 foals during their lives. Normally a foal is born with its front feet first. Foals are born with their eyes open and with a full coat of hair. When the newborn foal is born, it drinks its mother's milk for the first 6

Months. Foals can stand up shortly after birth. It also begins to

Supplement its diet by nibbling on grass and it's mother's oats.

The best place to feed your horse is in a bucket. A horse must have fresh water and eat oats. A healthy treat for horses is carrots and apples. A horse's age can be told by looking at its teeth. Up to the age of five a horse still has its milk teeth. A foal can be weaned from 4-6 months. Most horses reach their full size by the time they are five years old. The bones from a baby foal are very soft for the first three years. You shouldn't ride a horse until it is three years old because you can sway its back. When the owner weans the foal he separates it from the mother, and puts it out to the pasture with other foals. A baby girl horse is a filly, and when she is mature she is called a mare. A baby boy horse is a colt. When he is mature, he is called a stallion. A yearling is a one-year-old horse.

Training horses requires great skill and patience. It begins almost immediately after it is born. You should put a halter on it, and teach it to lead and to tie up to fences and to stand.

Horses grow up with help from their mothers and lots of help are grown up you can have fun riding them and they can be a friend to you.

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