CHAPTER VIII 



DAIRY STANDARD 



IN building up a herd a fixed standard should be 

 applied to cows five years of age and over. In a 

 butter-producing dairy that standard should not be 

 less than 250 pounds, and in the milk-producing herd 

 not less than 5,000 pounds annually. This, of course, 

 means under favorable conditions. The cow should 

 not be charged with the result of neglect on the part 

 of her owner. If a heifer comes from good produ- 

 cing ancestry and is of good dairy form, she should 

 not be discarded after the first, second, or even third, 

 calf. One of the worst mistakes ever made by the 

 writer was selling a fine, well-pedigreed cow at four 

 years old because she did not come up to his ex- 

 pectations. The following year she became a cow 

 producing between fifty and sixty pounds of milk 

 daily on average pasture feed with a little grain. 

 Among well-pedigreed, high-producing cows, ill or 

 unkind treatment will make a greater reduction at 

 the pail than with the scrub. 



REARING THE CALF 



The calf should be removed from the mother be^ 

 fore it is a day old. If it is not well developed, with 

 good teeth ; if it is dainty and not inclined to drink, 

 has a poor appetite and is generally offish, it will not 

 be worth the raising. Feed three times a day with 

 new milk, to which add a little hot water, for the 

 first week or more, and give not much over a quart 



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