CARE OF THE HEIFER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 31

CARE OF THE HEIFER

SHOULD BE MILKED WELL The lieifer during her first-calf period requires careful handling and feeding, writes an Australian stock expert. Any rough treatment and careless management will result in impairing her subsequent usefulness. Heifers should be milked as long as possible. Even if the young cow is only giving a small quantity of milk an effort must be made to keep her going. If she dries up too soon it is fatal, for at each future lactation she will tend to dry off at a similar period. A heifer should be kept going; it induces milk staying powers. Do not condemn a Tieifer on first calf that is disappointing in the quantity of milk, provided she milks for a reasonable period, is the advice of an authority of high standing. Many young cow's improve greatly on subsequent calvings, but heifers that dry off too quickly are not, as a rule, worth persevering with. Keep a record of the heifer’s production by having her tested, as a heifer’s test is her life’s test. She will not materially improve in the percentage of fat in after life, provided that when the test was taken she was in normal health and sufficiently fed. All increase in fat production will come from increased quantity of milk. | It is the satisfied, comfortable | animal that pays us most for the care i we give. P lu 1810 the average weight a fleece j of sheep shorn in the United States j was approximately 21b. By 1890, it | had increased -to nearly 5Ub, while j last year it was 7.61 b. Tests and observations carried out by officers attached to the United States Department of Agriculture indicate that liberal feeding of ewes just before and during the breeding season results in a larger percentage of twin births. Though the percentage of increase has varied in controlled flocks from year to year, the average over a definite period has been 16 more lambs a 100 ewes from flushed ewes than from ewes that did not receive extra feed.