^^^ Illinois State Dairymen's Association. 



age in the form of corn fodder silage, the second year especially 

 good silage which does not contain a great amount of whole corn. 

 I think by following up this plan, every time selecting a better 

 sire, breeding every generation up a little higher, a little closer 

 to pure bred, selecting your sires with a little more care, it is 

 only a question of time until calf breeding will become a pleasure 

 to you. It will be a pleasure to see a calf grow up and produce 

 more milk than its dam, and in turn it will be a pleasure to see 

 this cow's calf grow up to cowhood and produce more milk and 

 butter fat than did the calf which you previously raised. Those 

 things are possible, it is only a matter of providing care and 

 shelter for them and supplying the necessary attention, which, 

 as I said in the beginning, is necessary and there is one thing 

 that possibly I did not touch on as strongly as I should, and that 

 is the shelter for the young calves. Young growing animals 

 need a great deal of sunshine, direct sunshine, so I doubt whether 

 it is not a necessity in raising young calves to hnve a small calf 

 barn on purpose for the calves to rest in. It should always be 

 dry and it should be light, the sun should strike every foot of it 

 at some time during the day. This can be done by windows 

 along the sides of the barn. Sunshine is a great destroyer of 

 germs, and in turn germs are great destroyers of calves. Most 

 of the diseases with which calves are affected are germ diseases. 

 They are affected by cholera and scours, caused directly by dif- 

 ferent germs, so we need to keep the calves in a pure, healthy 

 place. If we keep them in a dark place, when they come to the 

 age when they would be most useful they are affected by tuber- 

 culosis, so that we need to look out for shelter. 



As I said, scours are brought about by germs but the germs 

 act quicker when the animal is delicate than at any other time. 

 The best possible way to guard against scours is always feed 

 the milk at the same temperature, at probably about 90 degrees 

 or as it would come from the separator immediately after milk- 

 ing. If the milk is kept at the same temperature every time 

 scours are not as likely to occur. The foam should be brushed 

 off the milk and we should be careful about the pails in which 

 we feed the milk to calves. If you allow the milk to get sour 

 dirt accumulates in the pails. If the pails are not washed they 

 accumulate dirt and filth and cause the growth of bacteria and 

 germs which would kill a human being, so that is one thing to 



