THE RAISING AND ECONOMICAL FEEDING OF CATTLE. 781 



old, from which the cream has been taken, adding four ounces of finely 

 ground meal made into thoroughly cooked mush, to each meal, for strong, 

 hearty calves. Thus they may be fed for two weeks more, changing to 

 oat-meal or wheat flour if the calf is inclined to scour. Some feeder.^ 

 add a teaspoonful of linseed meal once a day ; it is not a bad plan. 

 When the calf is four weeks old it need be fed but twice a day, giving 

 milk warmed to about ninety or ninety-five degrees, which last is the 

 natural animal heat. From this time on, more and more mush, or its 

 equivalent, may be added as the calf increases in size and strength, until it 

 begins to eat grass and threshed oats, which it should be encouraged to do. 



XIII. Peed Grass and Oats Early. 



At ten weeks old the calf should eat freely, and at three months old it 

 may be gradually weaned from milk and taught to subsist on grass and 

 oats. During all this time the calf should be sheltered from the hot sun 

 and rain, by providing a shelter to which it may retire, well ventilated, 

 dry and clean, and sufficiently dark to keep out green-head and other bit- 

 ing flies. In the autumn its rations of grain should be increased, and as 

 grass fails the finest meadow hay should be sulistituted — whatever it will 

 eat clean of both. Offer it water occasionally after it is a month old, 

 and when weaned see that it never lacks for water. 



Xrv. Where the Profit Comes In. 



If during the winter you have kept the calves in the warmest quarters 

 possible, and fed liberally with grain and hay, in the spring you will have 

 received the best profit that you will ever reap from the animal at any subse- 

 quent age ; but upon comparing debit and credit with your neighbor who 

 has fed skim-milk alone in summer and poor hay in winter, you will find 

 that the loss on his calves has gone in the shape of profit in yours. 



From this time on feed liberally of grain in the winter, and give a little 

 all summer when they will eat it. Let them be so warm in winter that 

 they never become chilled. So continue until the animal is within six 

 months of being ripe for the butcher. Then feed the best you can, and 

 you ^v'ill find that you will get two to three cents a jjound, gross weight, 

 more than your neighbor who has only half fed and has turned off his 

 cattle totally unfit for the butcher. 



The same rule will hold good for those calves intended for cows. To 

 make a good cow, she must- be fed well to bring early development and 

 maturity. She may thus be brought forward strong and lusty, and in 

 better condition at two years past to bring you a perfect calf, than those 

 of your neighbor at twice that age, whose policj has been to grudge them 

 feed and allow them to shift for themselves. 



