136" CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMiNG. 



breeders, however, choose to have their heifers in milk at two years of 

 age. In my experience this retards the growth and full development of 

 the animal, alike in size of carcass and milk-producing power, but not 

 to any very great extent unless the heifer is kept too long a-milking. 

 The commercial average value of calving cows, taken all the year round, 

 as sold in markets and at public sales for dairy purposes is about 21. 

 Such cows when done with at the dairy fatten well on grain alone and 

 average in live weight SJ cwt. Cows destined for dairy purposes are 

 never highly fed till they are in milk grass alone in summer, and hay 

 or straw alone in winter. It is considered that they thus develop their 

 milk- vessels and milk properties much better. 



Maturity as meat-producers. Statistics show to what perfection the 

 breed might attain if cultivated for purely fattening purposes. Mr. 

 Lawrence Drew, of Merryton, lately exposed and sold a large number of 

 calves, ten months old and then sucking their mothers, at from 18 to 

 25. I have sold in Paisley by public auction a two-year-old heifer to 

 the butcher at 30. Two oxen of the breed exhibited some years ago 

 by the Duke of Montrose gained the first prize at the national show as 

 the best fat animals. They were aged, respectively, five and a half 

 and four and a half years, and being of uncommon weight were sold 

 to the butcher for 120. Two-year old oxen of the breed fatten well on 

 grass alone, without cake, and average 20 stone. Bulls reach their full 

 growth at three years, and exhibit in a pre-eminent degree when fed all 

 through these years the weight to which the breed might attain. The 

 average live weight at that period from my experience is 16 cwt., dead 

 weight 11 cwt. At five years of age I had one killed at York this year- 

 winner in his class live weight 19 cwt., dead weight 13 cwt. The bulk 

 of bulls in this country are fed off and killed ait two years and nine 

 months. They average in dead weight 21 stones. 



Housing and handling Ayrshires. The breed is an exceptionally hardy 

 one, so far as climate is concerned, for many, if not the majority, of 

 breeders allow their calves and one-year-old heifers to lay out all win- 

 ter, merely sheltered by natural plantations and receiving one sheaf of 

 straw or hay each per clay. For my part I find they do extremely well 

 in this manner and start growing far earlier in the spring than those 

 pampered in houses. All exhibitors of the breed contrive, although 

 putting the animals under roof, to have them in open and exposed 

 houses so that they may come out well haired. Bulls of all ages are 

 generally kept in loose boxes, part of the box only being roofed. Calv- 

 ing and milch- cows are always kept in well- ventilated byres. The breed, 

 as a whole, is an extremely easily handled and managed one, I might 

 almost say of some intelligence. At milking time, either morning or 

 evening, at the appointed hour you find the cows at the gate* ready to be 

 taken in, and even in a byre of some hundreds a cow after one week 

 never mistakes her stall. 



Feeding AyrsMres. As I have said, young cattle are never better than 

 when till two and one-half years of age they never see a halter, giving 

 them milk for two months-as calves, then grass ; in winter, one turn per 

 day of hay or straw laid down on a clean bit of pasture, with probably 

 the addition of some little oil-cake. For show purposes I find the best 

 feeding is, for both morning and evening, cut bog hay steeped with bran 

 and warm water, with one handful of bean meal, and in the middle of the 

 day pulped turnips or oil-cake and bog hay. What we aim at is cold feed- 

 ing. They should be given the very smallest quantity of meal and oil-cake., 

 ^as they in my experience tend to put on flesh upon the neck, and thereby 

 spoil the first point in the breed, viz, a thin neck. I have a year-old bull 



