THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 5 
810 
FEED AND CARE OF A DAIRY COW . 
THE WHOLE STORY. 
I aim to have my heifers drop their 
first calves at about two years old. I 
think that this is better than to allow 
them to run dry and grow until three, 
for they are likely to develop too much 
of a beefy form, and we also lose the use 
of them for a year. 
If the heifer is to drop her first calf in 
the fall, the work of developing her is a 
very simple matter ; just give her a good 
pasture to run in, supplemented with 
some forage crop as the pasture becomes 
short towards fall, and she will develoj) 
a good udder on her own account, if it 
is in her make-up to do so. Do not be 
afraid to let her have plenty to eat, only 
see that her udder does not become 
swollen and hard before she freshens, 
in which case begin milking her, and 
also bathe the udder in warm salt water 
with plenty of hand rubbing. This will, 
generally, bring her out all right in a 
few days. 
If she is to freshen in the spring, she 
should be well fed during the previous 
winter. During the fore part of winter, 
I feed them in addition to corn fodder, 
about four quarts of bran daily, but this 
should be regulated according to the 
quality of coarse fodder, and the indi¬ 
viduality of the heifer. In fact, feed her 
up to the point where you think that 
she is as fleshy as desirable. As she 
nears the time of dropping her calf, 
some corn meal should be added, also a 
little linseed meal to keep her bowels in 
proper condition. Do not by any means, 
allow her to become constipated. As 
her udder begins to expand, spend a 
short time daily in gently pressing and 
rubbing it. This will get the heifer 
used to being milked, and also help her 
udder to expand. Spend as much time 
in this way as you can afford ; it will 
not hurt her. 
The first year, the heifer should be 
milked close up to the time of dropping 
her second calf. If she is small, it is a 
good plan to allow her to go 18 months 
between the first and second calves ; but 
milk her as long as possible. Above all 
things, don’t be afraid to feed her. Re¬ 
member that she is growing as well as 
giving milk, and a heifer weighing only 
600 or 700 pounds will often require as 
much feed as a mature cow weighing 
1,000 pounds. What her ration should 
consist of, depends largely upon the in¬ 
dividuality of the cow. 
The knowledge of how an acquaint¬ 
ance managed a heifer, may keep some 
other man from spoiling a grand cow in 
the same way. This man is an old-time 
farmer, who has been in the habit of 
milking his cows in the summer, and 
when the pasture gave out, allowing 
them to dry off and be a bill of expense 
all winter. lie bought a Holstein heifer 
a year ago last spring, that gave 35 
pounds of milk in a day. This pleased 
him so well that he gave her some bran 
to encourage her to keep at it. The 
heifer was encouraged and kept at it in 
a wonderful manner; in fact, she gave 
so much milk that she began to get poor. 
Now the old man thought a great deal 
of his heifer, and did not like to have 
her get poor, and as he was already 
giving her as much bran as he thought 
she ought to have, he came to the con¬ 
clusion that he must dry her off to save 
her life. When his mind was settled on 
this point, he dried her off as soon as 
possible, so that she would not get any 
thinner. She grew finely all winter, and 
dropped her second calf last spring, but 
gave milk out of only two teats. “ Ruined 
by over feeding ! ” In vain I pointed out 
the fact that “ drying off ” the heifer 
when she wanted to give milk was what 
spoiled her, and that she might have 
been kept in good flesh by giving her a 
sufficient quantity of corn meal with her 
bran. He contemptuously l-eplied that 
corn meal was the worst thing in the 
world to feed a heifer, and if I had had 
her, she would, probably, not have had 
any teats at all left. Now I am con¬ 
sidered a heavy feeder, and I have never 
had but one cow lose a teat in the past 
seven years, and this was caused by an¬ 
other cow goring her udder. 
On the other hand, if the cow is of a 
rather beefy tendency, do not give her a 
ration containing too much fat-forming 
substances ; many good cows are spoiled 
in this way, also. I will give you an ex¬ 
ample : Several years ago, a neighbor 
bought a purebred Jersey cow that gave 
him 40 pounds of milk daily. She was 
the largestand finest-looking Jersey cow 
I ever saw, not lean like most Jerseys, 
but a big, squarely-built, robust animal. 
This man was a high feeder, and as he 
kept but one cow, he bestowed a great 
deal of good care and corn meal, among 
other things, upon his pet Jersey. Rut 
she did not improve with this care. She 
got very fat, and shrank in her milk, 
and to make matters worse, she refused 
to breed, also. In despair, he sold her 
to a butcher and declared that he would 
never own another Jersey. I bought 
this cow and gave $50 for her, too. I re¬ 
duced her flesh, and in the course of 
time, she presented me with a fine calf. 
I gave her a good supply of bran and 
middlings, but no fat-producing foods 
whatever. She gave a pretty fair amount 
of milk that year, came in the following 
spring, and did better, and this fall, 
took first prize at the Chenango County 
Fair as a dairy cow. 
I aim to produce all the feed I can 
upon my farm. I lay my plans for the 
following year in the fall, and begin 
September 1, by sowing a piece of rye, 
enough to last my cows about two weeks 
in connection with their pasture. This 
is ready to feed about May 20, and is 
followed by a piece of wheat sown soon 
after the rye. Ry the time the wheat is 
gone, I begin to feed peas and oats 
which were sown as soon as possible in 
the spring, and then by some sown two 
weeks later. After this comes millet 
sown about May 25, and this is followed 
by later millet which lasts until Septem¬ 
ber 1, when early corn is ready to feed. 
My cows are also allowed to pick some of 
the aftermath from the meadows, but 
not to crop them close, as I consider this 
too valuable as a milk producer to be 
allowed to rot for manure. I also raise 
quite a quantity of fodder corn planted 
three feet apart one way and 18 inches 
the other, which I cut and put up in 
very large shocks for late fall and win¬ 
ter feeding. I leave this out until I feed 
it, and it keeps very nicely, not molding 
or, on the other hand, getting too dry. 
I have never built a silo, for, making 
butter for a private trade, I go more on 
quality than quantity, and, as the con- 
denseries and shipping stations object 
to ensilage milk, I am a little afraid of 
it. I i - aise as much corn and oats to 
grind for feed also, as I can, and this is 
pieced out with bran, middlings and 
other mill feed. 
Each cow is fed to what I consider the 
limit of profitableness (until she begins 
to put on too much flesh), l-egardless as 
to the quantity, and scarcely two cows 
are fed alike. They are allowed to go 
dry from one to two months, and become 
fresh at all times of the year, as my 
trade requires it. 
As to care in winter, my cows are kept 
in a warm stable, and each cow has a 
stall, and is hitched with a common 
web halter. She is supplied with bed 
ding, and is groomed daily. The cows 
are turned out in the yard to drink twice 
a day, and the stable is well aired when 
they are out, and is cleaned whenever 
we go to the barn. I should prefer to 
water cows in the barn ; but this is not 
practical in my case ; but if I did have 
water constantly before my cows, they 
should be turned out of doors just the 
same, excepting in stormy weather. I 
will admit that a cow will give more 
milk if kept in out of the cold air alto¬ 
gether ; but if not allowed to exercise or 
inhale the pure, out-door air at all, I 
think that she will, eventually, suffer in 
health. 
Do not, for a moment, think that I am 
in favor of cows standing all humped up 
outdoors and getting chilled through. 1 
let them go out to drink and come back 
as soon as they wish. When it is cold, 
they will do this immediately ; but on 
warm, sunshiny days, they will enjoy an 
hour in the yard. I think that if this 
plan were more generally followed, 
there would be fewer cases of tubercu¬ 
losis in the land, and more cows that 
would recover if already affected. My 
own case makes me think this way about 
the tuberculosis scare, as I have had a 
little experience in that line. My mother 
died of consumption when I was but one 
year old, and I was allowed to nurse her 
until six weeks before her death. My 
sister, older than myself, died of the 
same disease at the age of 12 years, and 
it was, of course, thought to be only a 
matter of time with me. Rut at the age 
of 13, I was put to work on a farm, and 
made to get up at 5 o’clock in tbe morn¬ 
ing to help milk the cows, all the year 
’round. From a little, white faced, puny, 
coughing boy, I got to be a man that is 
a terror to a lazy farm hand when we 
get out in the field together. If I do not 
die until that foe of the hothouse plant, 
consumption, rakes me in, I expect to 
live to milk cows and read The R N.-Y 
for many years to come. J. GKA.NT morse 
M adison County, N. Y. 
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Address ::::::::::::: ^ 
GRANITE STATE EVAPORATOR CO. 
1203 Main Street, Marlow, N. 
H. 
BEST 
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