FEEDING OF YOUNG ANIMALS. 145 



animals. The young ones have poor shelter, coarse 

 bog hay and straw for fodder, and little care of any 

 description. In the main, they are left to shift for 

 themselves, with poor food and imperfect accommo 

 dations, frequently with no accommodations at all, 

 unless the warm side of an old stack of bog hay, or 

 bleached cornstalks, can be so called. As they crowd 

 together under its shelter from the wind, and eat some 

 of the hay or stalks to keep from starving, the owner 

 congratulates himself on the saving of food that he 

 is effecting. I would ask him to consider whether 

 this is really the best possible practice, and think it 

 will not be difficult to show that every hour of this 

 fancied gain, is in reality a positive loss. It can 

 be made, evident from the following facts. The young 

 animal is, or should be, growing rapidly; its muscles 

 should be developing and increasing in size; its bones 

 growing and consolidating; its whole frame enlarging 

 from day to day, in a rapid and almost perceptible 

 manner. This is not to be effected by such treatment 

 as that described above. The real need at this time 

 is for remarkably strengthening and nutritious food 

 a food that should contain a large proportion of nitro 

 gen in some form, so as to increase the muscles; and 

 of phosphates, to strengthen and enlarge the bones. 



The daily \vaste of the body, is proportionally much 

 larger in the young animal than in the old; for, with 

 a more active circulation, all parts of the body change 

 their constituent particles more rapidly. Quite 

 young animals, it is said, often renew their whole 

 bodies in the course of a single year. Beside this 

 larger waste, there is the daily increase in bulk of 

 every part to be attended to ; the food, therefore, 

 should be nutritious enough for both, purposes. 



a. In England, young calves often have a small 

 portion of linseed meal fed to them with milk, this 

 meal being rich both in nitrogen and in phosphates, 

 Fat is not of so much consequence, unless in feeding 



