748 
The 
Live Stock Matters 
Conducted By Prof. F. C. Minkler 
Fattening Shotes; Feeding Calf 
1. I have two 45 to 50 lb. shotes. which 
I wish to kill soon if properly fattened. I 
have three to five gallons of skim-milk per 
day and some corn. Corn is $1.50 per bn.; 
■oats. 65c; middlings. $3 per cwt. I also 
have about 12 or 15 lbs. calf meal which I 
would use up. What does this meal con¬ 
tain besides oilmeal and middlings, and 
in what proportion? How shall I feed to 
get the most gain in the shortest time for 
the least expense? I do not care to use 
up all of my corn, and the shotes will 
eat only a few nubbins a day. I give 
them about all the milk they will drink 
and then take it away from them; feed 
three times a day. 2. Have a Holstein 
grade cow, fresh December S. As soon 
as the milk was fit to use I took the calf 
away and fed him skim-milk with calf 
meal. I made him weigh lS5_lbs. at five 
weeks, and he brought $27.75. Cow is 
fed equal parts of bran, cornmeal. mid¬ 
dlings and oilmeal; 3 lb. salt to 100 lbs. 
feed; Alfalfa and Timothy mixed, three 
times a day; beets with the ground food 
twice a day, after milking: grain feed at 
the rate of 314 lbs. to 1 lb. of milk. 
Water three times a day. warmed if cold 
weather. I have tried to get Alsike or 
Red clover, but without success; have a 
little bright fodder that T feed occasional¬ 
ly. Can I do anything to improve grain 
ration or cheapen it? I have some sor¬ 
ghum that we do not care for; it is not 
first-class, but not sour. Can I use it? 
Indiana. H. n. 
1. Bran middlings at $3 per 100 lbs. is 
a very expensive source of feed for any¬ 
thing but young pigs, and it would not 
pay to include very much of this material 
in your mixture. Corn at $1.50 per bu., or 
oats at 65c per bu. would both be far more 
economical, and since you have skim-milk 
to supplement these two feeds, you have a 
very useful mixture without them. You 
can safely add about 10 per cent of the 
calf meal to the ration, consisting of 100 
lbs. of corn, 20 lbs. of middlings, 40 lbs. 
of oats, 10 lbs. of meal. While the for¬ 
mula for this calf feed is a proprietary 
one, there is no doubt that it contains a 
considerable proportion of oatmeal, mid¬ 
dlings and oilmeal. No doubt there is 
some blood meal included, but the exact 
proportions naturally are known only to 
the manufacturers. Perhaps the reason 
why your pigs are not taking kindly to 
the culled corn is because they are sup¬ 
plied very generously with milk. Care¬ 
fully conducted experiments suggest that 
the greatest gains at the least possible 
cost are no doubt made when the amount 
of milk is limited to four or five pounds 
to each pound of the grain consumed. It 
is not necessary to use digester tankage 
where you have skim-milk, but if you 
wish to fatten these pigs and have them 
ready for slaughter late in March or early 
April, you must of necessity feed gener¬ 
ously with corn or barley, as you cannot 
put on flesh rapidly with oats, middlings 
and skim-milk. 
Fifty-pound pigs, as you have indicated, 
ought to gain nearly 2 lbs. per day, and 
it would be necessary for them to gain in 
about this proportion if they are to reach 
a useful weight by the time you slaughter. 
Feed the pigs all that they will clean up 
with relish, two or three times a day, and 
make sure that they get a liberal amount 
of grain, rather than depend too stead¬ 
fastly upon the milk for your gains. 
2. The results that you obtained with 
your 1'oistein calf mus* b" very encourag¬ 
ing. and the gains produced are as much 
as you ought to expect, unless you were 
feeding an increased amount of new milk. 
As far as the j.it'ou f.u your cow is con¬ 
cerned, it occurs to me that you are ex¬ 
travagant in the use of bran and mid¬ 
dlings. With Alfalfa hay it is not neces¬ 
sary to feed very much bran, and the 
brown middlings that one purchases now¬ 
adays are absolutely nothing but finely 
ground bran. If you could secure some 
buckwheat middlings to replace both your 
bran and wheat middlings, using a mix 
ture of about five parts of cornmeal, two 
parts of buckwheat middlings, two parts 
of oilmeal or cottonseed meal, your flow 
of milk would no doubt be increased and 
the cost would be a little less. If you 
have plenty of oats, the addition of two 
parts of ground oats would improve this 
mixture and at 65c per bushel you could 
well afford to feed them. As far as sor¬ 
ghum molasses is concerned, you could di¬ 
lute this with about five parts of water 
and sprinkle this dilution over the Tim¬ 
othy hay. and it would very materially 
add to its palatability and feeding value. 
1 would not feed, however, more than 
2 lbs. such molasses per day. and even 
this amount must be the result of starting 
with *4 lb. per day and increasing the 
amount gradually until the 2-lb. quantity 
is reached. 
Developing Holstein Heifer 
1. Will you suggest a good grain ration 
for my 214-year Holstein heifer, due with 
first calf about middle of June? I feed 
her common hay and oat straw, as people 
here told me it was not necessary to feed 
grain to a heifer, but she is not in very 
good flesh. I also have a nine-months 
heifer which did not grow much through 
the Winter, as her back was covered with 
grubs. 2. I have a piece of land which 
was sod after it was plowed. I had corn 
the first year and oat-s the second year 
on it. Would it be advisable to plant 
potatoes, or what would be best to plant 
or seed on it? A. o. 
Connecticut. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
calves. It is important that a dairy 
heifer gain considerably in weight as soon 
as she is safely in calf, and if the heifer 
in question that is due to freshen In June 
is thin in flesh and docs not present an 
.attractive appearance I would begin to 
feed her generously, using the following 
ration: 30 lbs. hominy, 30 lbs. ground 
oats, 30 lbs. wheat bran and 30 lbs. oil¬ 
meal. I take it that she will not. weigh 
more than 700 lbs. in her present condi¬ 
tion. This being the fact she should be 
fed eight or 10 lbs. of grain daily in addi¬ 
tion to the straw and hay that is avail¬ 
able. The amount of oilmeal may appear 
extravagant, but if she has had no grain 
during the Winter months and has been 
subsisting entirely upon straw or hay it 
is essential that she be given high protein 
bearing food in order that she may shed 
her old coat and assemble sufficient flesh 
to develop vigor with feeding qualities. 
A heifer nine months old should be fed 
about six pounds of the grain ratiou in 
addition to as much hay as she will con¬ 
sume. 
2. Concerning the piece of laud that 
you refer to. a useful rotation is corn, 
oats and clover. It is usually advisable 
to put in the grass seed at the same time 
that the oats are seeded in the Spring, 
although Fall seeding can be done, yet it 
is scarcely as dependable. If the ground 
is in oat stubble at the present time it 
can be fertilized, plowed, and then planted 
with potatoes, or the ground can be 
plowed and put into corn. It depends 
entirely upon the crops you are in the 
greatest need of as to which oue would 
be best suited for planting and seeding 
at this time. 
1. It is not possible to grow and de¬ 
velop a heifer intended for a milch cow 
by feeding her only hay and oat straw. 
It is very necessary that she be given a 
grain ration in addition to this roughage 
in order that she may properly develop 
the calf and attain a condition of flesh 
and vigor that would enable her to pro¬ 
duce milk in abundant quantity after she 
Trouble with Sows 
I have about 20 sows farrowing this 
Spring. The pigs are born healthy and 
strong and the sow seems to have plenty 
of milk when the little ones arrive, but 
within two or three hours the sow does 
not seem to have- any milk at all. The 
pigs are very hungry. Some of the sows 
April 2G, 1919 
gain their milk again within a day or 
two. and with the other sows the pigs 
get weak and die. We have been feeding 
cooked swill, collected from restaurants 
and cooked under steam pressure from 32 
to 15 hours, and bran, hog meal and bar¬ 
ley flour. The sows are all in good breed¬ 
ing condition and kept clean. There has 
been no disease in the stock, as I have 
340 shotes from last Fall, and they are 
doing well. This is the first Spring I 
had this trouble. Each of the sows has 
an outside house and plenty of exercise. 
The sows, when farrowing, have good 
appetite and no fever. I feed them very 
light a few days before farrowing and the 
first week after farrowing. c. .T. 
New Jersey. 
It is not uncommon to have tin* milk 
flow interrupted immediately following 
farrowing. It occurs to me that your 
trouble might result from the feeding of 
the cooked swill, and your sows might 
have been constipated as the result of 
feeding bran and coarse middlings. I 
would take away the swill from the brood 
sows for a week or 10 days previous to 
farrowing. I would give them a purge 
of raw linseed oil. Keep all grain from 
the sow for 24 or 36 hours, and then 
mechanically mix one-half pint of raw 
linseed oil with a quart of skim-milk, 
which amount is sufficient for a sow 
weighing 300 pounds. If the udders seem 
to be hard and feverish I would rub and 
massage them well with sweet oil. 1 
would regularly put a tablespoonful of 
either Glauber or Epsom <alts in the feed 
intended for the brood sows during this 
period, for it would cool down the blood, 
stimulate digestion, and promote the flow 
of milk as nothing else would do. 
As a grain mixture I would use equal 
parts of cornmeal. ground oats, wheat 
middlings and barley flour. Unless you 
have been giving the brood sows some 
mineral matter in the way of bonemeal 
or rock phosphate or acid phosphate, let 
them have access to some Alfalfa or clover 
111 [A7>. I —yj 
(JraininW: 
Why not Now ? 
Silage and roughage used for 
winter feeding are better than 
most pasturage. The average 
pasture is never balanced, 
never uniform throughout the 
season—protein being the ele¬ 
ment most lacking. Thousands of 
dairymen have proved that this 
shortage is perfectly replaced by — 
Purina Cow Chow 
Every 1 00 lbs. of Cow Chow contains 24 lbs. 
of protein, 85% of which is digestible. This 
makes it possible to balance the cow’s grass 
ration under all conditions and obtain an 
average of — 
6 lbs. more milk per day per cow 
—at an additional cost of about 6c per cow—a clear 
profit of about 10c per cow per day, or over $3.00 
per month. Let your own cows tell you more about 
it. Test it yourself. Your dealer should sell Purina 
Cow Chow. If not, write us. 
Purina Mills, 
Ralston Purina Co., Prop; 
827 Gratiot Street, St. Louis, Mo. 
Sold in checkerboard bags only. 
SIX 
BUSY 
MILLS ; 
If 
HORSE 
DAIRY 
POULTRY 
PURINA 
FEEDS 
SWINE 
STEER 
CALF 
□ 
CHECKER¬ 
BOARD 
BAGS 
m 
