Linseed as a Food for Calves.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 80, 1 October 1897, Page 2

Linseed as a Food for Calves.

The use of linseed ai a focd forcalres — and, in fact, for young farm animals generally— is extending in this country, and will in all probability become general in the course of a very short space of time. The practice has undoubted economical advantages. The objections towards it are on opposite grounds, one being thot the linseed pampers the animals, and the other that being deprived of the natural fat of tbe milk they grow up puny, and make worthless cattle for dairy, beef, or breeding purposes. The answer to both objections is that the linseed supplies to the skim milk the constituent which is removed in tbo cream. Whole milk contains on an average about 3*Bo per cent of fat, of which almost the whole is removed in the cream. Liu-eed contains about 35 per cent of oil, and by adding 2oz to4oz of liuseert to the gallon of milk, according to the age of the calf, thct balance of the ration is restored. Sometimes the linseed is added in the form of meal stirred into the warmed skim milk, but, the better method is to boil the linseed; in water to a felly, aud mix this wrth< tbe milk. In Denmark, by law, theseparated milk tuust be pasteurised before being removed from tJ; j creamery, and it should here be put il) rough an equivalent process heating ihe milk to 18'jdeg, or keeping it at 155dcg for twenty miuutc s, aud then rapidly cooling it — to protect the calves from the danger of being fed with diseased milk ; by this means, in Denmark tuberculosis dm been greatly diminished, and is hoped to be ultimately eradicated. It is es-ac-ntial that all vessels ased for tbe milk shall be perfectly clean. The milk should be at about SSd^g Fab. when fed to the calves, and can be gradually redoeed to 90deg, or even HSdeg. Crushed bats may also be gradually substituted for the linseed ; the Danes find tats of great value in fitting their stock to be good milk producers. Haud-feediag of calves is the rule with them. Whole milk is of course tbe natural food for calves, but butter can bo made from tbe fat of the milk, and tbe place of the fas in thecalf's diet is taken by tbe linseed ; thusstrong healthy calves are reared andthefarmer does not lose tbe profit of the: butter.— Canterbury Tiroos.