STARVATION OF CATTLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 October 1918, Page 7

STARVATION OF CATTLE.

To the Editor . Sir,—Two letters by "F.M." have recently appeared in your ctilumna under the above heading. Both writers, who might be judged from the bitter tone of their epistles, to be suffering from a touch of liver appears to be out to strafe the hard working dairy farmer for all they are worth and at the same time teach them how to carry on, Mr "M.8." states (about the only correct statement in his effusion) that "calves are dying by dozens everywhere." No doubt they are, often by numbers (one, one, two.) But what of it? Many farmers consider that killing calves is the most profitable way of marketing them, and at the present prices of skins and value of the carcases there is much to be said for it. A lot of hard work which often falls on the women folk is saved, and there is more for pig food. It is hardly necessary to advise the Taranaki farmer, who, generally speaking, knows what he is about, not to follow Messrs M.B. and F.M.'s tips about feeding calves for sis; weeks on new milk. With ordinary care it is quite easy to rear them well on much less—eight to ten days whole milk, then gradually lessening amount and adding whey with meal or boiled linseed. They should right off new milk in about twenty-one days, care being taken to keep right temperature; with bite of hay the calves will do well. The biggest trouble, however, comes later when they are from four to fiye months old. They then require a good run for grazing which is hard to give them without sacrificing cow feed. The lack of . this, and not the result of the first six weeks' feeding, is often the cause of them going back. The price of weanors is too uncertain to warrant feeding six weeks on new milk. A good many calves get it, but it is noticeable that people who feed bo seldom keep count of the amount used and the actual cost, and the calves are often no. better, or stronger when yearlings than those reared on a quarter the amount of new milk. As for the rest of the twaddlv nonsense about cruelty, etc., it would be amusing to know who is Mt (or mayhap Mrs) F.M., who designates the Taranald ( farms as "Mean," and is apparently j under the delusion that the public are interested in knowing whether F.M. thinks "a lot of people should be 'had-up" or not. And even perhaps more amusing still would be the identity, of his gallant endorser Mr F.M., with his forty years' experience who has the neck to accuse the farmers of this-province of "either wanton cruelty or deplorable ignorance!" What ca! that bit at the end "rotten, cattle revolve on , the /wheel of time," etc., hot stuff, eh ?—I am, etc.,i w. hj, sTEigsapar. i : Midhimt, S«pt..2Zi 1