THE DAIRY.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 22 May 1914, Page 7

THE DAIRY.

CARE OF THE DAIRY CALF.

Mr. E. H. Dollar, a prominent breeder of Holstein cattle and a farmers' institute lecturer of New Yorto, has the following to say concerning the care of the dairy calf :—

"In the first place we must consider the calf as an infant, and it must be handled and fed very much the same as a baby. I believe that it is safe to say that 90 per cent, of the calves that die at less than six weeks of age die from one of two reasons : indigestion caused by overfeeding, irregular feeding,, or feeding milk of a lower temperature than that to which the calf is accustomed ; or from infection caused by feeding from dirty pails. How many times we g 0 into a calf barn and find the pails turned bottom side up on the floor, and there they remain from one evening to another, from Monday morning until Saturday night, and . from one month to the next. Is there any wonder that a calf a week o r two old, fed from such pails, becomes sick, and after a few days dies ? And the infection passes from one calf to another, and many times the entire herd is lost.

"Again, we find a man who keeps his pails clean, but who is over-Ig-enerous. He wants tiis calves to grow fast, so he feeds them all they will eat, but feeds them only twice a day, allowing them to gorge their little stomachs with six or eight quarts of milk, when they should bo fed one or two quarts at a time, and that four times a day.

"Let us start with a calf at birth. We will take it for granted that the mother has been properly nourished and properly housed, so that this infant has been brought into the world in a £trong, vigorous condition. The mother and calf are placed in a box stall, loose, and leTE~ther3 for a short time, varying from six to twelve hours according to the condition of- the calf, but r,o longer than twelve hours under any condition. There are two reasons why the calf should be removed from the dam so early. We do not want the milk taken from the "mider of cow in too large quantities for at least two or three days after calving, "because we have learned from experience that the heavy-milking cow that has had her udder entirely emptied soon after. calving is apt to have milk fever or, at least, is more liable to this disease than she would be were her udder left well distended with milk. But the principal reason, so far as the calf is concerned, is that we do not want it to take intc its stomach too much milk at om time. It should have a little oi the mother's first milk—this seems to bt necessary ; but as soon as the calf becomes strong enough and begins to show a tendency (to take too; mac! of this milk, remove it at once to a separate stall, milk a small quantity from the cow four times a day or every six hours and feed it immediately, so that the calf will have the milk as near the temperature it came from the cow as possible. 01 course the amount fed must 1 be regulated according to the calf, but perhaps should not exceed one and a half jpints every six hours. The feeding pail should be sterilised or scalded every day ; in fact, I believe it more necessary that the calf pail be given the very best of care than it is that the milk pails be looked after to the neglect of the others. This little calf, then, should be fed three or four times a day for at least two weeks.' One of the greatest mistakes made by many calf feeders is that they ask the calf to go too long between feeding times, and then allow it to take too much milk into its stomach at one time. Calves should be fed very much as a baby is fed, and no one would feed a healthy baby at 7 o'clock in the morning and then* not until 7 o'clock at night.

"After1 the first two -or, three weeks the calf should be gradually changed from a whole-milk to a skim-milk diet by adding each time a little skim-milk direct from the separator. and it may also be fed three times a day instead of four. In this way the calves will derive nearly as much nourishment from the skim-milk as from the whole milk. To the akimmilk may be added a small amount of flax seed to replace the fat removed by the separator. This is an excellent feed, and one on which calves do well. We feed milk to our calves as long as it can be spared many times until they are a year old, but at no time, do we exceed six or eight quarts at one feeding.

"As a grain ration to be used in addition to the skim-milk, we have found nothing, better than 200 lb. of wheat bran, 100 Ib. of hominy, and 100 lb. of oU meal, fed all the, >«alves will eat twice a day. With this is mixed a little salt and a liberal amount of charcoal. Charcoal is an excellent preventive of disease and an aid to digestion, and it may be fed every day.

"In raising calves we endeav^m to have them grow rapidly, in order that they may reach their m-urrmmn production, their highest yield of milk, at the youngest age t»ossible. We believe that more can be -ione in the first year of a calf's life towards making it a profitable dairy cow, than can be done in any^two years afterwards if the calf has, been neglected. Grow the esJf fast, feed it liberally, and g,et a\*ay from the idea that a cow must be eight yeara old before she reaches her be<?t."— "Hoard's Dairyman."