272 HOUSE-FEEDING OF CATTLE 



when housed they take a considerable time to recover from 

 the shock or " backset " received before they begin to thrive. 



Regularity in feeding is of the first importance. A man 

 at 2os per week can tend thirty to forty bullocks tied in 

 stalls, if the food be close at hand. He can undertake the 

 feeding and management of sixty to seventy if they are untied. 

 Too much should not be given at one time, and any food that 

 is left should be carefully removed. Each supply of food 

 ought to be consumed before the animal leaves the feeding- 

 trough. Time is thereafter allowed for rest in which to chew 

 the cud and to prepare for the next meal. All changes of 

 food should be made gradually. Liberal allowances of 

 turnips given without due preparation are liable to produce 

 scour. Clover, if wet and in excessive quantity, produces 

 hoven and often death, from rupture of the rumen, or more 

 usually from suffocation induced by the pressure of the 

 distended stomach suspending the action of the diaphragm. 

 White and yellow turnips should be consumed first, as 

 swedes are sweeter and keep better for winter and spring 

 use. With fattening cattle one can never return with success 

 to an inferior food ; therefore, in the gradation of changes 

 in food materials, whether roots, cake, meal, or long fodder, 

 the last to be used should always be the most attractive to 

 the animal's palate. Of the various common roots, mangels 

 keep best and are best for spring use. Carrots, not so 

 frequently in evidence, resemble them in keeping power. 

 Roots should not be stored in pits in autumn before they are 

 properly ripened, nor should they be exposed to severe frost : 

 in either case they are injurious to all classes of stock. A few 

 degrees of early frost before pulling make turnips more 

 mellow to taste, and a safer food. Roots are usually given 

 only in quantity sufficient to supply water to the system i 

 cwt. per day to an ox is the usual limit, while f cwt. is often 

 enough. Potatoes should not be washed (as earth, in this 

 instance, acts as a corrective or aid to digestion) or given 

 in large quantities, as they are, on account of their starchy 

 nature, difficult of assimilation. 



Roots may be given whole to excite the digestive faculty 

 of the animals, or sliced (as some bullocks, with a specially 

 anxious or greedy disposition, are liable to leave their 

 troughs disagreeably wet, owing to the escape of saliva 



