262 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



tolerable supply) should be dried before the secretion of new 

 milk for the expected young one commences. 



Other precautions must be taken with regard to cows in 

 the latter months of gestation, and especially; a,* the time ap- 

 proaches. The bowels must be kept in a relaxed condition, 

 and the food should be limited in quantity ; at all times the 

 rumen, when loaded, presses upon the uterus, but more es- 

 pecially so during gestation, and should the rumen become 

 distended with food or gas, or the manyplus become filled 

 with hardened and matted vegetable fibres, arresting the due 

 arid healthy process of digestion, the pressure of the enor- 

 mous rumen may conduce to the destruction of both parent 

 and offspring. It sometimes occasions an alteration in the 

 position of the foetus, it always renders parturition difficult, 

 and fatal cases oftener, perhaps, arise from this than from 

 any other cause. Farmers in general seem to be little 

 aware of the necessity of regulating and moderating the diet 

 of cows on the eve of parturition, yet there are few who have 

 not lost cows from this neglect. The food allowed, moreover, 

 must not be stimulating ; the system takes on at this time a 

 febrile excitement; hence in cows which have been high fed 

 in rich pastures, or on much dry food, it will be well to have 

 recourse both to a mild dose of aperient medicine and the 

 lancet, blood being taken in moderation according to the 

 strength of the subject. 



It is the absurd and cruel practice of some, when they ob- 

 serve the precursor signs of parturition, or even when the 

 latter has commenced, to rouse the cow and drive it about, 

 hoping, we suppose, thereby to hasten the process which 

 nature herself has undertaken to regulate, implanting in the 

 beasts instincts obedient to her law. The consequence of 

 this ignorant, brutal practice is inflammation and all its train 

 of evils, and not unfrequently death. What does instinct 

 teach the animal? to leave the rest of her companions, to 

 retire to some quiet spot, to the shelter of the hedge, or the 

 side of a coppice, in order that she may escape disturbance 

 till she has brought forth her young. The wild cattle, when 

 they calve, select some sequestered situation, amidst the 

 dense thickets of the wood ; there they hide their progeny, 

 and go several times every day to suckle it, remaining near 

 it at night. The domestic cow has lost her original shyness, 

 but still she seeks an undisturbed spot and quits the herd. 



If her pasture afford no shelter, the cow should be put 



