Book VII. FATTENING CALVES. 9^ 



afterwards, as the first and thinnest of the milk is sufficiently rich. Old milk will, perhaps, scour a very 

 young calf; but the effect will go off without any ill consequences. He observes, that the Duke of 

 Northumberland's recii)e is to take one gallon of skimmed milk, and to about a pint of it add half an 

 ounce of common treacle, stirring it until it is well mixed ; then to take one ounce of linseed oil-cake, 

 finely pulverised, and with the hand let it fall gradually, in very small quantities, into the milk, stirring 

 it, in the mean lime, with a spoon or ladle, until it be thoroughly incorporated ; then let the mixture be 

 put into the other part of the milk, and the whole be made nearly as warm as new milk, when it is first 

 taken from the cow ; and in that state it is fit fox use. The quantity of oil-cake powder may, from 

 time to time, be increased as occasion may require, and as the calf becomes inured to the flavor of it. 

 And Crook's method is to make a jelly of one quart of linseed, boiled ten minutes in six quarts of water, 

 which jelly is afterwards mixed with a small quantity of the best hay-tea ; on this he rears many calves 

 without milk ; thinks many calves are annually lost by artificial rearing, and more brought up with 

 poor and weak constitutions. 



6161. When calves are dropped during the grass season, Donaldson observes, they 

 should be put into some small home- close of sweet rich pasture, after that they are eight 

 or ten days old, not only for the sake of exercise, but also that they may the sooner 

 take to the eating of grass. When they happen to be dropped during winter, or before 

 the return of the grass-season, a little short soft hay or straw, or sliced turnips, should 

 be laid in the trough or stall before them. 



6162. Ccf^ra^joM is performed both on male and female calves, when neither are in- 

 tended for procreation. On cow calves, howaver, it is often omitted. But in Norfolk 

 no distinction is made as to sex ; males and females are equally objects of rearing, and 

 are both occasionally subject to castration, it being a prevailing custom to spay all 

 iieifers intended to be fatted at three years old ; but such as are intended to be finished 

 at two-years old, are, it is believed, pretty generally left " open ;" as are, of course, 

 those intended for the dairy. There are two reasons for this practice : they are 

 prevented from taking the bull too early, and thereby frustrating the main intention; 

 and by tliis precaution may lie more quietly, and are kept from roving at the time of 

 fatting. This may be one reason why spayed heifers are thought to fatten more kindly 

 at three years old, and to be better fleshed, than open heifers. 



6163. The time of 'performing the operation of castration in horned cattle, as in all kinds of live stock, is 

 while the animals are yet very young, and just so strong as to endure this severe operation, without any 

 great danger of its proving fatal. The males, accordingly, are cut commonly when about a month old, 

 and the females at the age of from one to three months ; but in Galloway, where more heifers are spayed 

 than perhaps in all the island besides, this is seldom done till they are about a year old. 



6164'. The best time for rearing calves \s the spring ; but that operation must depend in some degree 

 on the time when the calf was dropped. Such as are weaned during autumn or winter, however, seldom 

 do any good. At the season when the calf is weaned from the teat, it ought to be turned abroad, in the 

 day-time, into a small close or orchard near the yard, where there is a good bite of grass, which may be 

 expected at the time of the year when the weaning-calves are of this age ; and, as there will generally 

 be more than one calf weaned in a season, they will each be company for the other, and become in a shore 

 time reconciled to their situation. It is to be observed, that this pasture should be at some distance from 

 that whereon the dams are turned, and that there be neither ponds nor ditches, nor any annoyance 

 which might endanger the lives of these youthful animals; and, m order to habituate them still more 

 to their pasture, milk-pottage should be carried to them at each of their feeding hours. For the first 

 month or six weeks, the calves ought every night to be brought out of the meadow, and lodged in the 

 pens ; but, after this time, they may be left in the pasture as well in the night-season as in the day ; and 

 at this time their food may be' lowered by degrees, till it be at length reduced to simple water only; for, 

 when the calves get to the age of twelve or fourteen weeks, they will no longer require the aid of this 

 sustenance, but will be able to satisfy tlieir appetites by grass. Care, however, must be taken throughout 

 the summer that they be frequently shifted from one pasture to another, in order that they may be kept 

 up in good flesh, and enabled to grow away with the utmost celerity. At Michaelmas, or soon after, the 

 calves should be taken into the yard ; and if they were allowed the indulgence of a small close to them- 

 selves it would be still better. 



6165. The treatment of i/ounq cattle, from the time they are separated from their dams, or able to sub- 

 sist on the common food of the other stock, must entirely depend upon the circumstances of the farm on 

 which they are reared. In summer, their pasture is often coarse, but abundant ; and in winter, all good 

 breeders give them an allowance of succulent food along with their dry fodder. The first winter they 

 have hay and turnips ; the following summer coarse pasture; the second winter straw in the fold-yard, 

 and a few turnips once a day, in an adjoining field, just sufficient to prevent the straw from binding them 

 too much; the next summer tolerably good pasture; and the third winter as many turnips as they can 

 eat, and in every respect treated as fatting cattle. {Culley, p. 47.) 



6166. The method of managing young cattle during the first winter is, accordmg to Donaldson, pretty ge- 

 nerally the same in every part of the island. They are almost always housed : sometimes bound up to the 

 stall ; but more frequently allowed to remain at freedom. The way of feeding them in England is chiefly 

 with hay, or hay and straw mixed ; and in Scotland, sometimes hay, but more frequently straw and turnips. 

 They are mostly turned out on some of the inferior i>astures on the farm the following summer, and main- 

 tained the second winter on straw in the straw-yard, or in houses or sheds erected for the purpose. Some 

 farmers in the more northern parts of the kingdom, from being situated at a distance from any market at 

 which they can dispose of stall-fed beef, very frequently give a considerable part of their tumip-crop to their 

 voung cattla This is, he thinks, an excellent practice ; and one that ought to be followed, even by those 

 who, from being better situated in regard to markets, can adopt other methods of using turnips to ad- 

 vantage. Tho benefit of green winter food for live-stock is so great, that there is probably, he says, no 

 way in which turnips can be used, by which the farm or the farmer would reap greater benefit, than by 

 giving the young cattle a daily allowance during the first two or three winters. 



SuBSECT. 5. Of Fattening Calves hy Suckling. 



6167. The most advantageous stock for suckling calves for the butcher, is that sort of cow 

 which gives the greatest (juantity of milk, richness of quality being not so great an object, or 

 so well adapted to tlie desired purpose. The Holdcrncss cows are to be preferred in this 

 view ; not, however, to suckle calves of the same, but of a smaller breed : perhaps Devon 



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