REARING OF CALVES FOR THE DAIRY. 215 



calf is to be taught to drink, it is better to do this when six to ten days old. 

 The calf should have the milk warm from the cow, having the run of a dry 

 yard with a little grass or hay to eat. A small field of grass in summer is still 

 better. When the time comes for feeding skim-milk the ration may be made 

 about as nutritious as new milk by adding to it gruel made by boiling a pint of 

 flaxseed and a pint of oil meal in ten to twelve quarts of water, or flaxseed 

 alone in six times its bulk of water. Mix this one to three parts of skim-milk, 

 and feed warm. Let the calf have its fill twice per day at regular times until 

 six months old. During this time teach it to eat a few oats, and in case of a 

 tendency to scour give for a meal or two, in the milk, a quart of coarse wheat 

 flour, sometimes called by farmers canel. The dairyman may feed whole milk 

 a single week and then substitute skim-milk with a little flaxseed jelly mixed 

 in as above described, or add two tablespoonfuls of oil meal per day dissolved 

 in hot water. This oil meal may be doubled in a week, gradually increasing to 

 one pound per day, but this will be sufficient up to sixty days old, then add a 

 pound of oats, oatmeal or middlings, and continue another sixty days. Twenty 

 pounds of skim-milk per day is sufficient for the first ninety days, but no injury 

 will result from a larger ration as the calf grows older. For the next ninety 

 days, if skim-milk is short, feed only ten pounds per day, and increase the oats 

 or middlings to two pounds per day. Linseed meal, new or old process, is a 

 most excellent feed, but oatmeal or middlings may be used in its place with 

 skim-milk. An excellent calf may be raised on skim-milk alone. 



*'We have had calves seventy days old fed on one-half pound of flaxseed 

 and one and a half pounds of oatmeal each, with twenty pounds of skim-milk 

 per day, that have gained an average of three and one-fourth pounds per day 

 for ten days. Their average weight at seventy days was 230 pounds. We ordi- 

 narily expect thrifty calves to weigh 300 pounds at three months. Flaxseed as 

 a small part of the ration for the calf cannot be too highly recommended. It 

 is a natural antidote to scouring, and a feverish condition of the stomach and 

 intestines. Its large proportion of oil renders it appropriate to mix with other 

 food deficient in the oil." 



Prof. James Law Indigestion, Diarrhea (Simple and Contagious), White 

 Scour (or Calf Cholera) : 



"Indigestion may occur from many different causes, as costiveness: a too 

 liberal supply of milk; too rich milk; the furnishing of the milk of a cow long 

 after calving to a very young calf; allowing a calf to suck the first milk of a 

 cow that has been hunted, driven by road, shipped by rail, or otherwise 

 violently excited; allowing a calf too long time between meals, so that impelled 

 by hunger it quickly overloads and clogs the stomach; feeding from the pail 

 milk that has been held over in unwashed (unscalded) buckets, so that it is 

 fermented and spoiled; feeding the milk of cows kept on unwholesome food; 

 keeping the calves in cold, damp, dark, filthy or bad smelling pens; feeding 

 the calves on artificial mixtures containing too much starchy matters; or over- 

 feeding the calves on artificial food that may be appropriate enough in smaller 

 amount. The licking of hair from themselves or others, and its formation 

 into balls in the stomach, will cause obstinate indigestion in the calf. The 

 symptoms are dullness, indisposition to move, uneasiness, eructations of gas 

 from the stomach, sour breath, entire loss of appetite, lying down and rising as 

 if in pain, fullness of the abdomen, which gives out a drumlike sound when 

 tapped with the fingers. The costiveness may be marked at first, but soon it 

 gives place to diarrhea, by which the offensive matters may be carried off and 

 health restored. In other cases it becomes aggravated, merges into inflamma- 

 tion of the bowels, fever sets in, and the calf gradually sinks. 



"Prevention consists in avoiding the causes above enumerated, or any 

 others that may be detected. 



"Treatment consists in first clearing away the irritant present in the bow- 

 els. For this purpose one or two ounces of castor oil with twenty drops of 

 laudanum may be given, and if the sour eructations are marked, a tablespoon- 

 ful of limewater or one-fourth ounce calcined magnesia may be given and 

 repeated two or three times a day. If the disorder continues after the removal 

 of the irritant, a large tablespoonful of rennet, or thirty grains of pepsin, may 

 be given at each meal, along with a teaspopnful of tincture of gentian. Any 

 return of constipation must be treated by injections of .warm water and soap, 

 while the persistence of diarrhea must be met as advised below. 



