MANAGEMENT OF YOUNG DAIRY STOCK. 51 



upright pieces, with 2x4's for the horizontal pieces at the top, with fencing 

 boards at the bottom. The stanchions are forty-two inches high, twenty - 

 eight inches apart from center to center, and allow for four and one-half 

 inches space for the neck. The feed trough is twelve inches wide, four 

 inches deep, and runs the full length of the stanchion. If calves are fast- 

 ened by rope ties, they should be far enough apart to prevent them from 

 sucking each other. 



SCOURS: The greatest difficulty in raising calves is undoubtedly 

 scours. Here, as elsewhere, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 

 cure." The principle causes are overfeeding, feeding sour milk, feeding 

 cold milk, feeding grain with the milk, dirty milk pails, unwholesome feed 

 boxes, and irregularity of feeding. An intelligent and observing feeder 

 will notice the symptoms of this disease as soon as it appears, in which case 

 the ration of milk should be cut down one-half or more and gradually in- 

 creased again as the calf is able to stand it. A successful feeder will do 

 his best to keep the milk sweet. When sterilized skim milk is brought 

 back from the creamery, the portion intended for that night's feed wiU 

 usually keep in good condition without any treatment. The portion 

 intended for the next morning's feed or the following feeds (where milk is 

 kept over Sunday or hauled to the creamery every other day) needs to be 

 cooled down to 60 degrees F. or less as soon as it arrives from the creamery. 

 Complaints are sometimes received about sterilized skim milk souring when 

 placed in tubs of cold water as soon as received from the creamery. Sterilized 

 skim milk will not sour until it is cooled to about blood temperature. A 

 can of hot milk will warm a tub of water to about this temperature, and as 

 the milk is cooled at the same time the best conditions are offered for the 

 development of lactic-acid germs. In this case a tub of water only helps 

 to keep the can of milk at blood temperature. Under such circumstances 

 the water is worse than nothing. If hot skim milk is cooled in the tub, it 

 should be done by running water. A better plan is to use a cooler, and 

 place the can of cooled milk in a tub of cold water in order to keep it cool. 



Skim milk treated in this way at the Kansas Agricultural College has 

 been kept sweet from Saturday forenoon until Monday morning, during the 

 hottest months of the summer, without the use of a particle of ice, the cool- 

 ing being done with well water. Where trouble is experienced when skim 

 milk is cooled and kept below 60 degrees, the fault probably lies in using 

 unclean utensils, or by the creamery receiving tainted or sour milk, or by 

 the skim milk being improperly sterilized. 



The heating of the milk tends to produce chemical changes that help 

 to prevent scours. There is probably no more effective way of upsetting 

 the system of the young calf than by feeding it cold milk. So important 

 is it always to feed the milk at blood temperature (95 to 100 degrees F.) 

 that a careful feeder will occasionally test the temperature with a ther- 

 mometer. No one can expect to successfully raise skim milk calves 

 without giving close attention to the temperature of the milk when fed. 



