Live Stock Breeders' Association. 149 



FEED AND CARE DURING THE FIRST WINTER. 



Under this system the chief part of the ration of our cattle 

 must be roughage, but calves from weaning time until grass, de- 

 serve, and will pay a profit on, a more liberal ration. At this age 

 they are less capable of utilizing fodders of low palatability and 

 nutritive value than later in life and less than the breeding stock 

 of the farm. This means that a considerable part of the roughage 

 for the calves the first winter must be legume hay, but with the 

 supply of corn fodder on the ordinary farm it is not necessary or 

 even advisable to make clover or cowpeas the sole roughage. Some- 

 thing like one-third of the daily roughage consumption should be 

 of field cured corn stover. When wheat or oat straw is available it 

 is a good plan to let them have the run of the strawstack. Then 

 feed them liberally on bright, well cured clover or cowpea hay. 

 If the pea hay should contain very much grain, the amount offered 

 would, of course, be correspondingly less. Ordinarily the rest of 

 the ration should be corn. Perhaps the best form in which this can 

 be fed is shelled. If facilities are already provided, and it is not too 

 costly this corn may be crushed, cob and all, to good advantage. It 

 should never be fed as corn meal, i. e., shelled corn finely ground, 

 without mixing it with ground oats or bran. These two latter feeds, 

 however, are entirely too expensive to be used for this purpose. The 

 calves will often learn to do their own shelling, and in such cases 

 ear corn is most satisfactory. The amount of grain to give will 

 vary with the season of the year and the weather, but in general, 

 three pounds per head in the fall and about four pounds per head 

 during the worst weather of winter and early spring will be found 

 to be about right. Instead, however, of feeding a fixed amount, it 

 is best to be governed wholly by how the animals do. If they are 

 thirfty and vigorous and yet not showing a disposition to fatten, it 

 is certain that they are being fed approximately to the profitable 

 limit. The moment they begin to show a disposition to fatten, the 

 feed should be slightly reduced. If, on the other hand, while still 

 growing they show a tendency to get thin, and the coat shows an 

 unthrifty condition, the amount of legume hay or grain should be 

 increased. 



Winter Pasture — In earlier times, when land was more abund- 

 ant and much cheaper than now, it was a very common and well 

 approved practice to save a considerable area of blue grass to be 

 grazed during the winter. So long as this pasture remained good, 

 cattle required no additional feeding, except during extreme 



