48 THE CREAMERY PATRON'S HANDBOOK. 



eighteen to twenty pounds. Calf milk should always be fed waim and 

 sweet. If impossible to have the milk sweet all the time, then it should 

 be fed sour every meal. It is possible to raise good calves on sour milk, 

 but it is impossible to raise good calves and have sweet milk one meal and 

 sour the next. 



IMPORTANCE OF SKIM MILK: Since the advent of creameries the rais- 

 ing of calves on skim milk has been a subject of vital importance to every 

 creamery patron and one of growing importance to every private dairy- 

 man. When calves six months old are worth from eighteen to twenty dollars 

 a head, and when the profits from a good milk cow are so greatly enhanced 

 by raising the calf on skim milk, it is vastly important that we know how, 

 first, to raise a No. 1 calf, and second (especially to the man with limited 

 capital on high priced land), how to accomplish this result through the 

 medium of skim milk. 



CHANGING FROM WHOLE TO SKIM MILK: When two or three weeks old 

 we may begin to feed skim milk. The stomach of a calf is delicate and 

 sensitive, and any change of feed should be made gradually. Do not change 

 from whole milk to skim milk faster than a pound or a pound and one-half 

 per day; i. e., if the calf is getting twelve pounds of whole milk per day, 

 the first day of the change feed eleven pounds of whole milk and one pound 

 of skim milk; the second day ten pounds of whole milk and two pounds of 

 skim milk; and so on, until the change is complete. 



FEEDING GRAIN: It has been found by experience that the starch 

 and fat contained in corn or Kafir-corn can be made to take the place of fat 

 removed from the milk. Calves will begin to eat grain when ten days to 

 two weeks old. At first put a little meal in their mouths after drinking 

 their milk, and in a short time they will go to their feed boxes and eat with 

 a relish. We find that calves four weeks old will eat from one-half to three- 

 fourths of a pound per day; when eight weeks old, from one and one-fourtii 

 to one and one-half pounds per day. 



Never mix corn, Kafir-corn or any other grain in the milk. The starch 

 of corn must be changed to sugar before it is digestible. This change takes 

 place only in the presence of an alkali, and, hence, chiefly by the saliva of 

 the mouth. When the corn is gulped down with the milk the starch is not 

 acted upon by the saliva, and cannot be acted upon by the gastric juice of 

 the stomach, since that is acid instead of alkaline. It will then re- 

 main unchanged until it reaches the alkaline secretions of the intes- 

 tines. Since the intestines of the calf are comparatively short, complete 

 digestion is impossible. In this respect the calf differs from the hog, which 

 has a comparatively small stomach and long intestines. For this reason 

 he may gulp down his feed, and what is not digested in the mouth will have 

 plenty of time to be digested in the intestines. 



Kafir-corn meal has proven to be a superior feed for calves. It seems 

 to be constipating, and materially assists in checking the tendency to scours, 

 go common with calves. Experiments at the Kansas Station show that 



