CHAPTER XIII. 

 THE RAISING AND ECONOMICAL FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



I. IMPORTANCE OF PROPER CARE WHILE YOUNG. II. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



GOOD AND BAD CARE.— III. THE STARVED CALVES AT GRASS. IV. THE 



OTHER SIDE.— -V. GOOD WINTER KEEPING FOR CALVES. VI. WHEN AND 



HOW TO CASTRATE. VII. GENERAL CLASSES OF CATTLE. VIII. SPECIAL 



CLASSES. IX. FULL FEEDING AND EARLY MATURITY. X. ECONOMY IN 



FEEDING. XI. THE TRUE POLICY WITH YOUNG STOCK. XIL FEEDING THE 



YOUNG CALVES. XIII. FEED GRASS AND OATS EARLY. XIV. WHERE THE 



PROFIT COMES IN. XV. FEEDING FOR BEEF AND FOR LABOR. XVI. REACH- 

 ING RESULTS. XVII. WHEN AND HOW TO FEED. XVIII. OUT-DOOR FEED- 

 ING WHERE CORN IS CHEAP. XIX. A GOOD CONDIMENT. XX. SO-CALLED 



PERFECT FOODS. 



I. Importance of Proper Care while Young. 



There is no more important factor in the management of cattle than 

 proper care while young. Those who imagine that they are doing the 

 correct thing if they can manage to keep life in a calf until it is three 

 months old, and then have it get fat on grass before winter comes, al- 

 ways have a set of "scrawiis," with tjcir digestive organs destroyed liy 

 improper food, and which never make either healthy steers or cows. They 

 are always runts — contemptuously called "scalawags," by the l)utchers 

 in our markets — and sell for one and a half to two cents a pound, 

 when good cattle are worth from four and a half to six cents. 



II. Difference between Good and Bad Care. 



A single illustration will suffice. One man will give calves new milk 

 until they are six weeks old, and then gradually reduce the quantity, 

 substituting oat-meal porridge or fine coni-nieal mush, with a very little 

 linseed added, or mixing equal parts of oat-nieal and corn-meal in the 

 milk, until the calf is four months old. Then it will do well on soft 

 grass and oats. 



The other man takes the calf from the cow at one day old. and feeds 

 it skim-milk until the age of three weeks, when half-cooked, coarse 

 meal — husks and all — is mixed with the milk ; and finally at six weeks or 

 two months old, the calf is turned out to grass, receiving, perhaps, an 

 occasional ration of sour whey. It is poor, does not gi'ow, takes "the 

 scours," which is only another name for indigestion, and if the animal 

 gets through the first winter with what such a man calls special nursing, 

 and occasional greasings with "anguintum, " to kill lice, he finds himself 

 the possessor of a scrubby yearling, ready (?) for grass, that will weigh, 

 skin and bones, from seventy to ninety pounds. 



