THE FEEDING AND MANAGEMENT OF CATTLE. 453 



food, it is apt to piue and shrink in weight, or at least make little gain. 

 Teach the calf early to eat grain, using ground corn, bran, oil meal, and 

 fine cut hay. The system of allowing calves to take the milk direct 

 from the cow can only be practiced with the very best representatives 

 of beef breeds, where the most rapid and perfect development is desired, 

 either for making early matured beef or for developing fine pedigreed 

 stock. 



I believe no breed of cattle can be continued as a first-class dairy 

 breed where the calves run with the cows. There is something about 

 hand milking which causes a cow to give more milk and for a longer 

 period than when it is drawn by the calf. Fine calves, even for beef 

 purposes, can be made where the calves drink full milk from the pail, 

 but the stockman will usually choose to have the calf do its own milk- 

 ing, or, if not, to subsist on skimmed or partly skimmed milk. 



In dairy districts few calves are raised except on skim-milk, and very 

 satisfactory dairy stock can be made by this process if a few simple rules 

 are intelligently followed. The young calf should be taken away from 

 the mother not later than the third day, and for two weeks given from 

 10 to 15 pounds of full milk, not less frequently than three times a day. 

 At the end of two weeks some skim-milk may be substituted for a por- 

 tion of the full milk, making the change gradually until in three or four 

 weeks skim-milk only is fed. Full milk of the Jersey or Guernsey cow 

 is often too rich for the calf, and part skimmed milk should be used 

 from the very start. At the end of a month or six weeks the calf will 

 do nicely on two feeds per day. Feeding Table T shows that the cow's 

 milk has a nutritive ratio of 1 to 3.7. In skim-milk the ratio is 1 to 2.1. 

 Skim milk contains all the elements of full milk excepting the fat, and 

 we can in a measure make up for this with cheaper substitutes. Proba- 

 bly the best simple substitute is flaxseed, which should be boiled until 

 reduced to a jelly, and a small quantity given at each feed stirred in the 

 milk. Oil meal is cheaper than flaxseed, more easily obtained, and 

 serves practically the same purpose. Keep each calf tied by itself with 

 a halter in comfortable quarters, with a rack in front for hay and a box 

 for meal. For feed use either whole or ground oats, bran, oil meal, or 

 a mixture of these. By the third week have a mixture containing the 

 grain feed at hand, and as soon as the calf is through with the milk slip 

 a little meal into its mouth. It soon learns the taste, and, following 

 that instinct so strongly marked, takes kindly to the meal in the box, 

 ami in a few days eats with the regularity of an old animal. Have the 

 me;il 1 Mixes movable, and place the meal in them sparingly, emptying 

 out all that remains before each feeding time. Change the kind or 

 combination of grain if the calves seem to tire with what is given. 



A prime requisite to success in calf feeding is regularity; let the 

 c.ilves be fed ut the same time and in the same order each day. Next 

 to regularity, regard the amount of milk fed. While 15 to 18 pounds 

 of full milk it* a ration, with skim-milk from IS to -\ inmnds may be 



