336 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



heifers, on the other hand, are in a large number 

 of cases difficult to get to stand, and fat cows 

 are likely to produce very small calves. What 

 is desired is good condition without running to 

 either extreme. To secure this it is only neces- . 

 sary to deal with each animal as an independ- 

 ent organism, and feed just as much as is 

 found necessary and no more. To feed a num- 

 ber of animals on a general average rule often 

 succeeds, but when it does fail it is often in the 

 most unfortunate way, for it gets the easy feed- 

 ers too high in flesh and they are hard to re- 

 duce, and it lets the poor feeders drop behind 

 and they are hard to bring up. 



In regard to the age at which a heifer should 

 be bred much depends on the breed, and still 

 more on the actual maturity of each individual 

 animal. Some of the smaller breeds mature 

 earlier than the others and should be bred ear- 

 lier. The Jerseys and other Channel Island 

 cattle are good illustrations of this class. The 

 Short-horns may be taken as a mean between 

 these and some of the later maturing breeds. 

 My experience with Short-horn heifers is 

 that they should be bred at about eighteen 

 months old. Certainly it is rarely for their 

 ultimate good to be bred earlier than that age. 

 If the heifers are small or backward in any way 

 it is often advantageous to delay breeding from 

 one to three months later. Much depends on 



