HERD MANAGEMENT. 179 



will be far less danger from sore teats or a caked bag than when the milker 

 attempts to divide the milking between a headstrong calf and the pail. The 

 calf should always be given the first milk which comes from the cow after 

 it is dropped, but the younger it is when it has its first lesson in drinking 

 from a pail, the easier it can be taught. At first, the milk should be gwen 

 while it is fresh and warm, and, if it is unusually rich, it should be diluted 

 with warm water. After the calf is two weeks old, a little sweet skim milk 

 may be mixed with the fresh milk, and the amount may be gradually in- 

 creased until the calf is a month old, when skim milk may be fed alone, 

 though it should be fed warm until the calf begins eating other food. Scours 

 and diarrhea are usually caused by overfeeding or by feeding milk which 

 is too rich. 



The calf should be kept growing constantly from the time it is dropped 

 until it has reached full size, and this should be done by the aid of all the 

 hay and roughage it can be induced to eat, and with only a small amount 

 of grain. When the growth is made principally on hay and pasture, the 

 calf may become very pot-bellied, but that is in no way objectionable, as 

 a large belly indicates a large development of the digestive organs, and a 

 stomach capable of holding and digesting a large amount of feed is an ab- 

 solute necessity to every animal which is to become a profitable cow. 



If the dam is a grade cow of a small-sized breed and the calf is a male, 

 it is of ten better to kill the calf as soon as it is dropped; also such pure-blood 

 male calves as are not wanted for service or for sale as breeders. Bull calves 

 of the larger breeds are better worth keeping, at least until they can be 

 made into veal, but the man who makes dairying his principal business will 

 seldom find it profitable to raise and fatten steers. 



HEIFER CALVES should be handled very often to keep them gentle, and 

 frequent manipulation of the udder during the first pregnancy will do much 

 to stimulate its development. This frequent handling of the udder is of 

 no little importance, not only in securing its better development, but also 

 to make the heifer so familiar with the operation that when her calf is 

 dropped she will take the milking as a matter of course, and will not require 

 to be "broken." The heifer should be served so that she will drop her first 

 calf when she is about two years old, as breeding when young will make 

 a more productive cow than when the mating is delayed until another year. 

 When the first calf is not dropped until the third year, one calf and one year 

 of milking are lost, and the heifer acquires a tendency to use her surplus feed 

 in the laying on of fat instead of in the secretion of milk a tendency which 

 will be retained through life and which would have been avoided by earlier 

 breeding. 



