374 



FARMER'S CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK 



At first, the calves are kept hidden, 

 while the cow goes off to graze for a 

 few hours, and then returns to allow the 

 calf to get more milk. 



In all dairy regions, and wherever 

 milk may be sold as such, or in the form 

 of butter, the farmer must decide on the 

 relative economy of allowing the calf 

 to have the whole milk, or selling the 

 cream or butter and replacing this part 

 of the milk with other food. This 

 problem has been attacked by many ag- 

 ricultural experts, and by other practi- 

 cal feeders; and interesting residts have 

 been obtained which have had much to 

 do in determining the common practice 

 in this matter. Calves may be more 



this matter is the kind and quantity of 

 cream substitutes which may be best 

 and most economically used with the 

 skim milk ration for calves. 



Hay tea experiments — In Kansas, 

 Otis tested the use of hay tea for calves. 

 In this experiment two kinds of hay 

 were used: mixed hay, containing or- 

 chard grass, blue grass and a little red 

 clover; and alfalfa hay. The hay was 

 boiled for one or two hours, after which 

 the coarse material was removed and 

 the tea further concentrated by boiling. 

 In this experiment I2V2 pounds of hay 

 were used to produce 100 pounds of tea. 

 The total cost of this amount of tea 

 was estimated at 11 cents. The re- 



Fig. 21 



-BLOODED CALVES WORTH MORE THAN MILK 



profitably maintained when not allowed 

 to receive whole milk, but only skim 

 milk with a small grain ration added. 

 This fact being established, it becomes 

 necessary to determine how well calves 

 thrive on such a ration as compared with 

 calves on whole milk or with calves al- 

 lowed to suck the cow. Experiments 

 along this line have shown that while in 

 some instances slightly better results 

 are obtained in whole milk calves than 

 in skim milk calves, yet the differences 

 are so slight that, as a rule, it is impos- 

 sible to distinguish between calves 

 brought up by these two methods; and 

 the profit from skim milk calves is al- 

 most invariably greater. One of the 

 most important points to consider in 



suits obtained from the use of this ma- 

 terial were not very satisfactory. Al- 

 falfa tea appeared to be so laxative that 

 it was impossible to keep the calves from 

 scouring. The cost of gain in calves on 

 hay tea was too high. 



According to Stewart, however, this 

 old practice of rearing calves on hay tea 

 rests on a good foundation. The soluble 

 nutriments in the hay are readily ex- 

 tracted by boiling and the material con- 

 tains all of the nutrients required by a 

 growing calf, providing the hay is cut at 

 a time when there is a large amount of 

 soluble matter. Moreover, the tea should 

 be boiled down so as not to contain too 

 much water in proportion to the amount 

 of nutriment. In Stewart's experiments, 



