. Except for the Roman introduction of chickens, domestic animals in medieval France were little different from those of prehistoric times or, except for their smaller size, from domestic animals today. From early on, dogs were bred for hunting and herding and horses for riding and pulling; religious prohibitions prevented the use of either for food. Improved breeding of other species occurred from the central Middle Ages. Although the military and agricultural usefulness of the horse increased tremendously with the early-medieval introduction of horseshoes, horsecollars, and stirrups, most peasants continued to use oxen for plowing; asses served as pack animals (in the Midi they were widely used for hauling salt) and as riding animals for clerics and women. The preference for cattle, despite the higher speeds and greater strength of the horse, was due to the high cost of feeding the latter, particularly over the winter; even with cattle, there was a tendency to sell extra animals before winter, and considerable profits were made by urban dealers having access to winter feed who bought cattle in the fall from peasants and then sold them back for the spring plowing. Cows were kept primarily for the young they produced rather than for their limited milk production. Because large animals competed with humans for food (there was tension between the needs for sufficient livestock to manure the fields, for pasture for that livestock, and for arable for cereals), small-animal husbandry generally predominated in food production. In the earliest period, pigs, being adaptable, were the primary source of meat; they were able to live in a wild state on acorns and nuts in the forest but were also kept by town dwellers.
As forests disappeared and their use became more controlled in the central Middle Ages, and as demand for meat, cheese, wool, leather, and parchment increased, sheep and goats became increasingly important in the rural economy, as did the practice of transhumance. Chickens, ducks, geese, and peacocks are mentioned by Carolingian sources, and rabbits appear to have been domesticated during this period.
