INTERESTING JOTTINGS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 230, 29 March 1928, Page 3

INTERESTING JOTTINGS.

Feeding Young Pigs. When young pigs are about one month old in Ireland they are encouraged to eat by feeding the sow two or three times in their house from a flat trough, and when they have learned to eat they are fed apart three times daily on separated milk or fresh butter milk with a mixture of equal parts of bran, pollard, and oatmeal, a small portion of boiled potatoes also being given. Milk is freely given to young pigs. Where separated milk or butter milk is available the rearing of pigs provides the most ecenomical and profitable means of disposing of these dairy by-products. As the pigs get older the proportion of oatmeal is reduced and a little maize meal added. The male pigs are castrated when they are about five weeks old, and so their growth is much less seriously checked than if the operation is deferred until after weaning. Milk Secretion. In a pamphlet upon “The Hand Milking Cows,” Mr James Mackintosh, of the National Institute for Research in Dairying, goes into details regarding the construction of the udder and tells ns that it consists of the following parts: (1) A band of fibrous tissue or muscle, which is attached to the wall of the belly and bears the weight of the udder. The very large pendulous udders found in old cows are due to the fibrous bands becoming stretched and failing to hold the udder as close to the belly as formerly. (2) The mammary glands, one on each side of the udder. (3) Numerous milk-making cells arrang- j ed in clusters and composing the bulk ' of the two glands. These cells are surrounded by small blood vessels supplying the material from which the cells make the milk. (4) Numerous ducts or channels leading from the milk making cells and gradually joining together to form larger channels in which the milk is conveyed from the cells to the milk cesterns. Where small channels combine to make larger channels there are small circular muscles which are under the control of the cow, and by which she is able more or less completely to close the ducts .and thus “hold up” her milk. (5) Four milk cisterns, or reservoirs, one above each teat. These are small cavities with a capacity of a pint or so each, and with a circular muscle .at the base, over which the cow has little control. (6) Four teats leading downwards from the cisterns. Each teat consists of a channel, surrounded by a muscular wall and blood vessels. At the outlets of the channel

(the points of the teats) there are again circular muscles, only slightly under the control of the cow. As the muscles in (5) and (6) are practically uncontrolled, the milk in the cisterns and teats cannot ba “held up.” (7) Connective and fatty tissue. This substance composes the remainder of the udder; if the amount present is large the udder is described as “fleshy,” and does pot shrink or “melt away” after the cow is milked. Care of Heifers. Although it is true that the most important period in the life of a dairy cow is the first six months of her calfhood this does not mean that she can be neglected between the age of six months and freshening. Undersize and under-development generally can usually be traced to under-feeding during the heifer stage; and it is an axiom of good dairying that the most productive cows are the ones that have grown to their full capacity. Every calf is bom with certain inherent and inherited possibilities (says a writer in the Farmers’ Advocate). Her breeding determines the extent of her possible production and profit for her owner, but her feeding and care determine the extent to which these possibilities will be developd. This is the reason why when certain dairy farmers get hold of heifers that have been unfed, they can make them more profitable than they have been previously; but even the most expert feeding and care cannot make up for all of the lost opportunities that occurred during calfhood and heiferhood.