CHAP. vii. FATTENING OF CALVES. 145 



Warmth is, indeed, well known to be essential to the health, and par- 

 ticularly to the improvement in flesh, of all animals ; but sufficient 

 attention is not generally paid to the maintenance of an uniform tem- 

 perature, although, next to a proper shelter, it is the point of greatest 

 importance. 



Cleanliness is also an object of rigorous attention, the place being 

 kept constantly dry, and supplied with a proper quantity of good litter. 

 As soon as any of the animals refuse regularly to take their food they 

 are consigned to the butcher, and their place is occupied by the next 

 in age. 



Some of the Strathaven feeders give the milk at first sparingly, from 

 an idea that it sharpens the appetite of the calves ; but others, more 

 naturally, and with as good effect, allow a full supply from first to last. 

 During a week or two after they are calved they are not found to con- 

 sume more than about half of a good cow's milk, but the quantity is 

 gradually increased to as much as they will drink. A well-grown calf, 

 at four weeks old, will consume the entire milk of one cow. If in good 

 health it will, in two or three additional weeks, take the greater part of 

 the milk of two cows ; and, in order to bring them to the greatest degree 

 of fatness, it is common to give those calves that are furthest advanced 

 the last drawn or richest part of the milk of three cows, after they are 

 nearly or quite two months old. This last practice, however, is rarely 

 necessary ; for it will generally be found that the animals will be fit 

 for the butcher in about six or seven weeks, without any other attention 

 than that of giving them their share of genuine milk, keeping plenty of 

 clean litter under them in a place that is well aired and of moderate 

 warmth, and excluding the light. Some have given eggs, and others 

 have put meal into the milk ; but the best feeders do not approve of 

 such admixtures, which, they say, darken the flesh of the animal. 1 



The instructive writer from whom we have extracted this account 

 does not state the average quantity of milk consumed by the calves 

 during the process of fattening ; but he says that the Strathaven 

 farmers calculate on realising ten shillings per week from each calf, 

 valuing the milk at from If d. to 2d. per quart ; and many have used 

 their milk in feeding veal when they could have sold it at these prices. 

 If this is the case, it is clear that either the system or the stock must 

 be superior to anything of the kind in England ; for the calculation of 

 the profit of suckling in Essex, where it is usually practised for the 

 London market, is only four shillings and sixpence per week. Although 

 that may be under the mark, yet ten shillings would probably be as 

 much above it. 



We are informed that the calves in Holland are reared in long and 

 narrow, but tolerably lofty, suckling houses. The pen in which the 

 calf is kept is so narrow that it cannot turn round, but only go back- 

 ward to the end of the pen, which is very short, or forward to the 

 door. The house is kept in total darkness, and the pen is perfectly 

 clean and sweet. When the suckler comes to feed the animal, a small 

 hole is opened in the doorway sufficiently large to admit the head of 



1 Alton's "Dairy Husbandry," chap. Hi., sect, i., p. 60. 



