FEEDING BEEF CATTLE 217 



profitably used to keep cows in proper condition, especially 

 if nursing calves. During the growing season, when pas- 

 ture is not abundant, it will pay to furnish the cows with 

 green corn fodder, sorghum or any of the legumes palatable 

 to cattle. 



The beef bull, like the breeding cow, needs to be kept 

 in good vigorous condition, but not fat. Care should be 

 taken to see that he is not overfed; for, with some owners, 

 lack of exercise and too much feed make the bull too fat 

 and injures his value for breeding service. He should receive 

 but a light amount of fattening food, relying mostly on 

 roughages and protein concentrates. The beef bull is better 

 off for having exercise, and should be given work, if possible, 

 as is so commonly done in continental Europe. 



The feeding of beef calves. For the first four months, 

 and even more, the calf nurses its mother and receives such 

 other feed as local conditions permit. On the range milk 

 and grass make up the daily diet of the calf. Where farm- 

 ing is on smaller areas, the calves may or may not run with 

 the cows. Very young calves, however, usually do, but in 

 the hot days it is better to keep them in the darkened stable 

 during the day, protected, if possible, from flies, allowing 

 them to nurse the dams morning and night. In some beef 

 herds, the calf is taken from the cow in three or four days, 

 and given milk in a pail. Mr. J. Dean Willis, one of the 

 most noted Shorthorn breeders in England, raises his calves 

 on milk in the pail. The new milk may be given until the 

 calf is about three or four weeks old, when skim milk may 

 gradually replace the new milk substituting about a pound 

 a day of the skim for the other, until nothing but skim milk 

 is fed. It is important that this milk be sweet, and per- 

 fectly clean, and fed at blood temperature in absolutely 

 clean buckets. A tablespoonful of dried blood in the bucket 

 of milk once a day will assist in keeping the digestive tract 

 of the calf in healthy condition, preventing scours. 



