INJURY TO COWS BY ALLOWING CALVES TO SUCK.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1863, 12 February 1880, Page 3

INJURY TO COWS BY ALLOWING CALVES TO SUCK.

[“ American Agriculturist.”]

There is no truer thing in my experience, and I believe in that of hundreds of others, than that allowing a calf to suck is an injury to the cow. This injury is more or less permanent according to how long it is continued, and doubtless depends largely upon the vigour and digestive powers of the calf and the quantity of milk given by the dam. The udder of a young cow, thus treated in the full flash of her yield, loses capacity to hold a large ‘‘mess ” of milk, if it ever had it, and older cows becoming accustomen to the steady half hourly drafts of the calf, fall off in their yield rapidly after the oalf is sent to the market. Calves, it is true, usually fatten better on the cow than as fed, in general practice in this country, but our practice is certainly wrong, and I am no means sure a calf may not be just as well fatened off, as ‘‘on the cow.” In fact I have once or twice fattened a calf so well ‘‘on the pail,” that the butcher complimented the veal, saying that any one could see that that was no skim-milk calf, whereas after the first three days of its life, it had no milk which was not skimmed. The loss of the cream was made up to the calf by as much scalded linseed-meal cake as was judged good for it, and i‘, always had a wisp of sweet hay, or bite of grass in its season, to nibble upon. All calves are not alike in this respect, but where milk is the principal thing, veal is secondary, and so we are willing to sacrifice something of the excellence of the veal to the good ot the dam. When a deep-milking cow has two calves put upon her, their thrift will often indicate an enormous milk secretion. I presume no harm comes from such practice, commenced after the cow is four or five years old, but thousands of good heifers are spoiled every year because, not being pleasant to milk, their calves are left to run with them Their udders never becoming distended, they lack capacity to carry their milk from one milking to another, and when their calves are taken away, not ooly do the teats leak, but the discomfort by the unusual distention of the ndder results in a decrease of yield. Whereas, had the distention”occurred when tho whole system was in the plastic con dition in which it was just after calving, when the udder is naturally swollen and more or less painful, it would have become for life adapted to the circumstances and would be of increased capacity.

A very sensible article is going the rounds of the papers, showing that it is ju-t because wild cons have their calves running with them that they never give much milk. It seems folly for farmers who want milk to follow the course, which they can see in nature produces just such results as they do not want. See how-it ia with mares. I was surprised to find that a good mare gave fourteen quarts of milk in a day, and yet must mares will sustain in good order a larger animal than a big calf and one which grows much faster. This fourteen quarts of milk was given wi,en the colt was weaned. What, is it fair to assume, was given by tho mare during the period soon after foaling, the time when cows yield moat ? In cows, of course the decrease of milk is not observed until the system of milking twice a day is adopted. So long as the calf takes its rations as often as it can digest what it takes, the flow keeps up—but it renders the cow more or less incapable of carrying the milk produced and ot producing more than she can comfortably carry.