26 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



AVhen the dairy calf is about to become a dairy cow is one 

 of the most critical periods in her existence; the heifer shou^a 

 be handled and become thoroughly familiar with mankind and 

 learn to trust and depend upon him. A very little handling- of 

 the young animals goes a long way in giving them confidence in 

 their owner when their offspring has come, and if they have 

 confidence in him, they will be proud and glad to receive atten- 

 tion from him, but if they have not, they will need a great deal 

 more care, attention and unnecessary work which might have 

 been avoided by kindness and perhaps an occasional manipulation 

 of the udder, which familiarizes them with milking, and the 

 hardest part of breaking the heifers to milk has been done while 

 she is yet the dairy calf. If you are breeding your good cows to 

 a bull that you are sure should produce calves that will improve 

 your herd, you feel impelled to raise the calves and cannot help 

 taking more interest in them than you possibly could in raising 

 scrub stuff. 



Whether your stock is Jersey, Guernsey, Holstein, Brown- 

 Swiss, or any other class of cattle, stick to your text, and once 

 having made up your mind w^hat you want, keep on in that line 

 with a pure bred bull and you will have a uniform herd of some 

 kind, and as a general proposition a better grade cf milkers than 

 to jump from one breed to another each succeeding season. You 

 get a reputation in a short time of having a heard of Jerseys, 

 Holsteins, Swiss or some other breed of cattle, even if you never 

 had a pure bred female on the place, providing you use a sire oi^ 

 the same breed for two or three succeeding generations. 



Even with the greatest care that can be used in selecting 

 calves, there will be disappointments. Occasionally a calf that 

 you expect the greatest things from proves a disappointment. 

 The best sires are often sacrificed before their real worth is 

 known. On several occasions we would have given many times 

 what a comparatively good bull could be bought for if we could 

 get back some animal that had been sent to the butcher's before 

 his real worth as a breeder was known. Of course this is an 

 unfortunate condition that only time and close observation on 

 the part of the breeder can obviate. 



