780 CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK AND COMPLETE STOCK DOCTOR. 



grind their food pretty thoroughly. For fattening cattle we prefer, first, 

 shocked corn, next snapped corn — that is, corn snapped from the stalk 

 with the husk remaining — and next, husked corn in the ear, the waste to 

 be gathered by store hogs. We have found that, with good shelter, five 

 pounds of corn and ten pounds of good sweet hay per day was a good 

 fattening ration to each 1000 pounds weight of steers fed. 



When feeding shock corn, give all the animals will eat clean as to the 

 ears. They will take what blades are needed, and stock steers may fol- 

 low to glean, with stock hogs after, to pick up what grain is Avasted or 

 left in the droppings. Sheltered from winds and storms the stock may 

 thus be economically fed to heavy weights. 



For 3^oung and growing cattle there is nothing better than equal weights 

 of corn and oats, or corn and barley ground together, whichever may be 

 cheapest, with plenty of good hay or corn fodder that has been shocked 

 before frost. In the South cotton-seed meal, and mill stuff may take 

 the place of corn and oats, or corn and barley, while pea vines, or other 

 good fodder natural to the climate, may be used instead of hay. The 

 economy of feeding, may thus be summed up : First, good shelter ; 

 second, plenty of food to keep the animals constantly improving, and 

 third, feed whatever substantial and nutritious food may be cheapest. 



XI. The True Policy with Young Stock. 



We may be allowed to repeat nearly verbatim what we have before 

 written upon the subject of raising young cattle. The breeder and 

 feeder must exercise sound and careful judgment. It will not pay 

 to starve even the commonest stock. A calf, to use a common 

 expression, "knocked in the head with a pail of skimmed milk," 

 will never make a first class steer or cow. Neither is it nec- 

 essary that they suck the cow. In fact, in the case of the dairy cows 

 or heifers intended for the daiiy, they should not suck, for it surely tends 

 to diminish the flow of milk, except the calf is turned with the cow at 

 stated intervals, and the cow milked clean at the same time. In the case 

 of heifers, they should be milked as soon as the calf has drawn the first 

 milk, both as a means of training and to develop the flow of milk as 

 nmch as possible ; besides this, a calf taken at two or three days old is 

 easily taught to suck the finger or an artincial teat attached to a reser- 

 voir. 



XII. Feeding the Young Calves. 



For the first two or three weeks they should have nothing but new 

 milk. It should be as warm as it conies from .the cow, and the calf 

 should be fed four times a day. Then they may have milk twelve hours 



