FARMER'S CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK 



hay, 15 pounds cottonseed hulls, 3 

 pounds cottonseed meal. For other 

 states the rations should be compounded 

 on a similar basis with the most conven- 

 ient forms of nitrogenous and carbo- 

 naceous elements, so balanced as to pro- 

 duce a comparatively narrow ration. 



Feeding methods — One of the most 

 important practical questions for the 

 dairyman is whether cows should be fed 

 in stalls, loose in pens or in yards. This 

 question has been answered differently 

 in different localities. According to 

 Hayward's experiments in Pennsylvania, 

 more bedding was required to keep the 

 cows clean and comfortable in pens than 

 in stalls and it appeared not to be 

 economical to keep dairy cows loose in 



year, and occasionally men have found 

 it possible to keep cows in fairly good 

 health and productivity for eight or 10 

 years without ever allowing them to step 

 outside of the stable. 



In such a system of management great 

 care is required in the sanitation of the 

 stable in order to maintain the cows in 

 good health and comfort. Moreover, 

 Eraser found that the keeping of cows 

 in a stable in cleanliness involves a great 

 amount of labor, since each animal must 

 be carefully attended to. Fraser ad- 

 dressed a series of questions to the dairy- 

 men of Illinois regarding the relative 

 advantages and disadvantages of keep- 

 ing cows loose in a shed, and other prac- 

 tical points of dairy management. These 



Fig. 293 — A JERSEY HERD IX THE BARN YARD 



pens on farms where the supply of bed- 

 ding was limited. Hayward found that 

 considerably less labor was required to 

 care for cows in pens than in stalls, and 

 that the cows remained cleaner in stalls 

 and the milk contained fewer bacteria. 

 In Illinois, on the other hand, Fraser 

 came to the opposite conclusion as the 

 result of his extensive observations on 

 methods of keeping milch cows. It i3 

 admitted, in the first place, that milch 

 cows cannot endure quite as much ex- 

 posure as steers, and this well-known 

 fact has led many dairymen to adopt 

 the method of keeping their cows closely 

 confined in stables, especially during se- 

 vere weather. In some instances, the 

 cows are kept in stanchions for 24 hours 

 a day for six or eight months of each 



questions were answered by eighteen 

 prominent dairymen, who had been in 

 the business for two to nine years, and 

 who kept a dairy herd of the ordinary 

 size. Almost without exception, these 

 men had found it necessary to have their 

 cows dehorned, but it was not found 

 that cows were any more likely to in- 

 jure one another with their horns if kept 

 loose in a shed than if maintained in a 

 stable. The size of the sheds varied 

 from 13x40 feet to 143x225 feet for 

 herds varying in size from 13 to 150 

 cows. The dairymen reported that their 

 practice was to use bedding in the shed 

 daily, every other day, three times a 

 week, or in some cases only once a week. 

 As a rule, it was found that more bed- 

 ding was required in sheds than in 



