HKB
he contemn the mares because he has become used to their kind. If you use him for breeding earlier he will quickly exhaust himself and his get will be poor.
"If you have no ass foal to have brought up by a mare and you wish a breeding jackass, you should buy the largest and handsomest you can find; the best breed, as the ancients said, was that of Arcadia, but nowadays we who know maintain that the breed of Reate is best: where breeding jacks have brought thirty and even forty thousand sesterces ($1,800-$2,000).
"Jacks are bought like horses, with the same stipulations and guarantees. We feed them principally on hay and barley, increasing the ration at the breeding season so as to infuse strength into their get by means of their food. The breeding season is the same as for horses, and, like them again, we have the jack handled by a studgroom.
"When a mare has dropped a mule colt or filly we bring it up with care. Those which are born in marshy and swampy country have soft hoofs, but if they are driven up into the mountain in summer, as we do at Reate, their hoofs become hardened.
"In buying mules you must consider age and conformation, the one that they may be able to work under a load, the other that the eye may have pleasure in looking at them: for a team of two good mules is capable of drawing any kind of a wagon on the road.
"You, my friend from Reate," Murrius added, turning to me, "can vouch for what I have said, as you yourself have herds of breeding mares at home and have bred and sold many mules.
"The get of a horse out of a she ass is called a hinny: he is smaller in the body and usually redder in colour than a mule, and has ears like a horse, but mane and tail like an ass. Hinnies are carried by the dam twelve months, like a horse, and, like the horse too, they are raised and fed, and their age can be told by their teeth."
Of herd dogs
IX. "It remains," said Atticus, "to speak of the last of the quadrupeds on our programme, that is to say, of dogs, which are of the greatest importance to us who feed the woolly flock, for the dog is the guardian of such cattle as lack the means to defend themselves, chiefly sheep and goats. For the wolf is wont to lie in wait for them and we oppose our dogs to him as defenders. Hogs can defend themselves, as well pigs, boars, barrows and sows, for they are near akin to the wild boar, which we know often kills dogs in the woods, with their tusks. What shall I say of large cattle? I know of an instance of a herd of mules pastured together, which, when they were attacked by a wolf, joined in forming a circle about him and killed him with blows of their hoofs: and again, bulls often stand together, rump to rump, and drive off wolves with their horns. But of dogs there are two kinds, hunting dogs, which are used against wild beasts and game, and herd dogs, which are used by the shepherd. I will discuss the latter methodically, following Scrofa's nine heads.
"Of the first importance is the choice of dogs of suitable age, for puppies and old dogs cannot protect themselves, much less the sheep, and so often become themselves the prey of wild beasts.