WHY MILK COWS?

Shannon News, 12 June 1925, Page 1

WHY MILK COWS?

“I began milking cows when k started farming for myself twelve years ago,” a successful farmer told me recently. “And 1 expect to continue as long as I stay in the farming business. Why milk cows? For the very good reason of a cream and egg check every week in the year, and a fat check for my pigs twice a year. I know that I have doubled my egg production with the addition of skimmilk as a supplemental feed to the dry mash I make from my home-grown feeds. This dry mash is fed in a hopper to the chickens the year round and consist of finely-ground wheat arid oats in equal portions. The skimmilk is fed sour in a wooden trough. Ail they can consume. They are protected from exposure in winter and have a range on green pasture in summer. I get an average of about 140 per hen each year, Which I am told is just double the average production for the hens of this country. I am confident that the milk fed is largely responsible for the increased production. I know because I gave all the milk to the pigs for a year, and my egg production was cut about half. “I have increased my dairy herd so that T milk an average of twelve cows daily. This gives enough milk for both hens and .pigs. With milk for the pigs I can get a 100-pound gain with about half the coin. I was once foolish enough to feed my pigs on corn alone. I matured the pigs after a fashion — but what a waste of corn. Now I run the pigs on lucerne and give them skim-milk, and it takes less than ten bushels to get '-a 100-pound gain. With corn alone it took close to eighteen bushels for the 100-pound gain. It’s the |iilk from my cows that balances the rations for the rest of the livestock. Just cou’dn’t do without the milk.”—B. R., Neb., in “The Dairy Farmer.”