VOL. XLIX. NO. 2101. 
NEW YORK, MAY 3 , i 89 o. 
PRICE, FIVE CENTS. 
$ 2.00 PER YEAR. 
A NEW TIE FOR CATTLE. Fig. SO. 
FASTENING DAIRY COWS. 
T HE winter season is now over and the cows are going 
out to pasture. What sort of condition are they in 
after the winter’s confinement ? Have they been comfort¬ 
able during the housing season ? Their comfort has 
depended largely upon the way they have been confined in 
the stables. Good dairymen now recognize the fact that 
the only profitable cow is the comfortable cow. Just now 
when the cows are going from the barn to the field, the 
results of the winter’s confinement are most plainly evi¬ 
dent. The R. N.-Y. has asked some of the most practical 
dairymen among its readers to tell us how their cattle are 
fastened in the stable. This investigation was suggested 
by the following note from a subscriber in Connecticut: 
“I have never experimented much with regard to the 
difierent ways of fastening cows. I have generally used 
stationary stanchions and as the animals grew up they 
got accustomed to them and 
seemed to do well; but the 
following case set me think¬ 
ing : I bought an eight-year- 
old cow that had been accus¬ 
tomed to stand loose in the 
stall. I kept her in the same 
way until she felt at home 
and gave her usual mess of 
milk. Then I put her in a 
stanchion with the other cows 
and she gave three pounds 
less than her usual mess on 
the same feed. Then I put 
her back in the stall loose, and 
she gave her old mess. Then 
I tried her in the stanchion 
again, and after three weeks’ 
kind treatment and the same 
feed, I have failed to make 
her yield her full mess.” 
It is impossible for us to 
give all of the replies here. A 
few sample notes are given 
descriDtive of the more com¬ 
mon ties for cattle. The old 
stationary stanchions are still 
used by many dairymen, fre¬ 
quently because they save 
space and permit close pack¬ 
ing of the cattle. TheR.N.-Y. 
is surprised that the various 
swing stanchions are not more 
generally used. These take 
up no more room than the 
stationary kinds and permit 
the cow to move her head 
with considerable freedom. 
This matter of fastening cat¬ 
tle is an important one—far 
more important than most 
dairymen realize. 
A New Cow Tie. 
Chain Fastenings. 
For fastening dairy cows I 
think a chain around the 
neck is the best device. I use 
stalls seven feet wide for ma¬ 
ture cows, and six feet for 
heifers. An iron rod about 
two feet is bolted to the side 
of the stall a little back of the 
manger, the lower end being 
18 inches from the floor, and 
the rod is set out an inch so that the chain will slide freely. 
There is one foot of chain between the rod and the cow’s 
neck. The manger is low—not more than 10 inches high 
—and two feet wide. The rack is perpendicular and has 
folding shutters. A feed-box for grain, 30 inches long, 13 
wide and nine deep, slides out to receive the grain. The 
floor for medium-sized cows is five feet from manger to 
drop, which is six inches. I do not like a deep gutter into 
which cows and men may fall and out of which manure 
must be lifted. With bedding to absorb liquids, and good 
care, cows can be kept clean. I like double stalls better 
than single, because their employment saves a little room. A 
seven-foot stall seems as roomy for two cows as a four-foot 
for one. Then double stalls are more convenient for fasten¬ 
ing and unfastening the cows. The rack is the best arrange¬ 
ment that I have yet seen for feeding fodder corn, green or 
dry, or stover. In using it there can be but little waste, 
and when the stalks that are not eaten come through they 
“I am pleading for the 
cow,” writes O. H. Smith, of 
Cattaraugus County, N. Y., 
in describing the device shown 
at Fig. 80. The picture hardly 
needs any description. A is a 
standard plank one foot wide and two inches thick; B is a 
lever one inch thick, tapering in width, being 2% inches at 
the wide end, and one inch at “tie” end; C is the slat 
bolted to the standard with pieces inserted between the 
slat and standard, so as to leave a space in which the lever 
is held in place while allowed to work up and down freely; 
D is a bolt fastening the lever to the standard; E is a peg 
on which the ring on one end of the chain is hung. When 
the cow is let loose, the ring should be hung on the peg. 
When she is to be tied she puts her head and neck over the 
lever and the chain is handy to go around her neck. The 
chain from each lever is always to be hung on the next 
standard. The lever has the motion of the cow’s neck — 
when she is up, the lever is up; when she is down, the 
lever is down. 
Mr. Smith writes as follows concerning his device,which, 
by the way, is not patented: “I have used my device for 
years for a herd of dairy cows. It is easily made, very 
chewing the cud, taking care of what they have stowed 
away in their stomachs. My device or lever can be 
attached to any plank stanchion. If the standard is light, 
set another and let the lever work between them. If not 
wide enough add to its width. The front plank or base to 
which the manger and standard are fastened can be very 
much wider, that is, higher, than for stationary stan¬ 
chions. Mine are 14 inches high or wide. The bottom of 
the manger consists of two-inch planks with beveled edges 
to give the right slant, and so tightly fitted together that 
feed can be given without waste. 
The Box Stall. • 
The best method I have ever used, seen or heard of to 
fasten a dairy cow in the stable is a latch, bolt, hook or 
button on the door of a box stall. I like the box stall best 
because the cow is more comfortable in it than she can 
possibly be in any other kind of device ; she keeps cleaner; 
handy and cheap. There is no kind of stationary stanchion 
which does not inflict cruelty on the cattle fastened in it. 
No cow can lie down in a natural way with her head or 
neck between two standards, however they may be 
arranged, and when an animal is in an unnatural position 
it is in more or less misery. Fastened in this contrivance, 
a cow can turn her head and freely lick her back as far as 
her hips. Everybody makes his cow mangers according to 
his own fancy; but this device is adapted to all styles of 
mangers equally well. I like an open manger best because 
it can be kept clean more easily than any other, and clean¬ 
liness in a cow manger is very essential. Some want par¬ 
titions between the cows, to prevent them from pulling 
and pushing each other’s ration of hay; but they will not 
do this if properly fed. When I see my cows pulling and 
pushing and mussing their feed around in the manger I 
take it away; they don’t want it until they have a keener 
appetite. Until then they will do better lying down and 
if properly bedded, her udder seldom needs washing: she 
has more manger room and her neighbors cannot Interfere 
with her feeding; she can calve in her own stall, eat the 
afterbirth, lick the calf dry, lie comfortably with the calf 
within reach and sight and be ready in the morning when 
you go to the stable, to drink the bucketful of warm 
water with two quarts of bran in it that you give her, and 
then eat the handful of hay you limit her to the first day ; 
and the calf, when it is to be weaned, can be taken away 
while the cow is out in the yard, and she will miss it less 
than if she were taken from a calving stall and changed 
to a narrow stall with her head in a stanchion or with a 
chain around her neck. Unless the narrow stalls have a 
very tight floor and plenty of absorbents are used in the 
gutter, more and better manure will be made in the box 
stall. It does not need to be cleaned out oftener than once 
a week or 10 days, and then only to prevent the cow from 
standing too high (on the manure) to eat comfortably out 
of the manger, which is about 
on a level with the floor. 
The manure made in a box 
stall is better, because all the 
liquid is saved in such a way 
that no extra labor is required 
in handling it; in fact, the li¬ 
quid is Baved “dry,” that is, it 
doesn’t “ drip ” any more than 
the solid. The objections to 
the box stall are two : first, its 
cost, and second, where many 
cows are kept, a little more 
traveling is necessary to “get 
around” to all, as they H\t 
further apart than those sar¬ 
dine-packed in narrow stalls. 
I don’t know from experience 
what would be the effect on 
the milk yield of changing 
the mode of fastening, but 
1 will venture to say that if 
my cows were put into my 
neighbor’s stanchions the 
yield would be very much de¬ 
creased until they got used to 
their new, uncomfortable con¬ 
ditions; whether they would 
do as well after they did get 
accustomed to stanchions I 
never expect to find out. On 
the other hand, if my neigh¬ 
bor should put his stanch¬ 
ioned cows into my box stalls, 
they would probably be so 
happy the first day that they 
might forget to make any 
milk at all. a. l. cbosby. 
