LIVE STOCK AND DAIRY 89 



seven feet high, fourteen inches wide at bottom and thirty inches 

 wide at top. A gate should be built secure and independent at other 

 end of squeezer. Paul Parker, Salinas. 



To Prevent Self-Sucking. 



Will you give me a plan of preventing cows from sucking themselves? 



Fit a girth around her body, close to -tier shoulders, having a ring 

 suspended under her belly. Take a strong but light stick and fasten 

 a snap onto each end. Snap one end of this stick into the ring on 

 the girth and run the stick through her forelegs, snapping the other 

 end into the halter ring. In this way she will have freedom of the head 

 to eat, etc., but cannot get to the udder. More head freedom is given 

 by the two-slat affair described in Part V, Vol. I. 



Dehorning Heifers. 



/ have some heifers, coming two years old, which I wish to dehorn 

 but have been told that if dehorned before third year, stubs will grow. 

 Is it advisable to wait? What instrument is best? 



There is no need to wait to dehorn your heifers. A butcher's meat 

 saw is as good an instrument as you can get. Be sure and make your 

 cut close to the skin of the head in order to destroy the horn forming 

 structures at the base of the horn. Have a hot iron handy to stop hem- 

 orrhage. Apply Stockholm tar to the horn stubs. (For dehorning 

 calves see Part VII, Vol. I.) 



Dehorning Cows in Summer. 



Would it do any harm to dehorn cows in summer? 



It would not do the cows any particular harm, but dehorning is not 

 generally done during the summer on account of the flies which are 

 attracted and which greatly annoy the cow. The usual time for dehorn- 

 ing is in the spring, before the fly season starts. 



Butchers' "Weighing Condition". 



/ sold tivo 250-pound calves to our butcher and the weight he 

 returned was about 60 pounds less than they weighed here. As they 

 rode only $ l / 2 miles, and that in a spring wagon, I knew they could not 

 have lost $4 worth of weight in that distance, so I asked about it. He 

 said it was not fair to him to get them full of grass, and that they should 

 be "gaunted." He said that when cattle and hogs are sent to the San 

 Francisco market they are not fed or watered the night before they arrive 

 or the day they are weighed, so that when weighed they are entirely 

 empty. Is that correct and the accepted custom? 



It is the practice of all buyers to hold cattle about 24 hours before 

 they are weighed, without feed or water, although we doubt whether it 



