CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1918, Page 3

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

To the Editor. Sir, —After reading ''MB.'s" letter in your • paper of the 'i.3th tilt., 1 should like to say that I. heartily agree with all he has to say re calf feeding. Surely if calves are worth keeping at all they are worth feeding properly. It seeuis to me to be poor policy to keep a lot of calves, and then when the winter comes to lose more than half of them through their not having any constitution. It is a positive disgrace the way some calves are fed. It nukes one' 3 heart ache tjj see them scarcely able to walk about. They are so weak with being scoured through the vile stuff they have to drink. Farmers should lie compelled thy law to always put some substitute for butter fat in whatever liquid they give the calves. The farmer, who would be horrified at tho idea of anyone starving a child, thinks nothing of systematically starving his calves. It would be a gooif thing if everyone of the calves that is reared so poor!v were to die. Then perhaps in time farmers would get some senseI am glad to say, however, that there are farmers here and there who do know how to rear calves properly. A neighbor of mine, 'who has been farming for a number of years, makes a boast that he has never lost a calf, and the reason is simple enough. He feeds them on new milk for three or four weeks. Then gives them linseed in less milk with water added, and it is a pleasure to look at his calves. Also while they are very young he always puts them in A farm shed at night, never leaving them out in the bitter weather. This man reckons that .it is economy to feed calves well, and not to keep too many. Be the cruel method of beating calves awav from the feeding trough, if some people were not so lazy they would nail slats of wood up in front of the trough, so that each calf could get its head through and each have a proper place, thereby saving trouble for both man and beast. —I am, etc-, J. M. G. Omata, *2oth September.