I9TO.] 



Baby Beef. 



j.8i 



deep milking cows will do provided they are got by a good 

 bull. The system also requires rather more complicated 

 cropping. The calf-flesh must never be lost, and this entails 

 the production of green and succulent fodder-plants all the 

 year round in those districts where there are not good, cool- 

 bottomed, well-sheltered paddocks in which the calves can 

 run. It also entails care and skill in rearing the calf, and 

 generally, like every other profitable system, involves a con- 

 siderable amount of trouble. 



Systems of Rearing "Baby Beef." — The simplest method 

 is that of the breeding cow and running calf, but even if 

 one supposes two calves put on each cow in the herd, this 

 system is not very profitable. This is at once evident if we 

 consider what it costs to keep a cow, and reflect that the most 

 we can expect for one year's maintenance is two calves of 

 about five months old, one of which has been bought for, 

 say, two pounds. This system requires a good deal of grass- 

 land, and unless it is cool and thoroughly w^ell sheltered the 

 calves lose a large proportion of their flesh galloping about 

 when worried by the fly in the summer. Again, calves so 

 reared are apt to be wild, and do not settle well in their boxes 

 when put up to fatten away from their mothers. 



I should, however, like to give an example of what can 

 sometimes be done on this system. The animal in question 

 was an Aberdeen Angus on the University Farm at Cam- 

 bridge. At one year and nine months old this heifer weighed 

 1,225 lb., or just under 11 cwt., and was sold for ^24. It 

 was estimated that she would yield 54 stones (of 14 lb.) of 

 meat, so that at 8s. she would have made ,£21 125. This 

 heifer ran out with her mother on grass till about six months 

 old. She then wintered for six months, getting, besides the 

 usual hay and straw and roots, about 2 lb. of mixed cake 

 and corn per diem, and the following summer ran out on 

 good but not "finishing" grass. During this summer she 

 got no cake, but in the autumn she was for about three months 

 in the boxes on from 4 lb. to 5 lb. of mixed cake, and the 

 usual allowance of hay, straw, and roots. 



Another system is that of feeding out a heifer and her first 

 calf together. If one has some nice shaded grass, some pro- 

 perly sheltered yards, and plenty of straw and roots for heifers 



