FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1921, Page 8

FARM AND DAIRY.

STICK-CHEWING COWS. (From Our Inglewood Correspondent.) It has been very common of late to hear dairy farmers remarking on the extraordinary appetite developed by some of their r »ws for bones and dry sticks, roots of . utly decayed whitewood, or mahoe. dry moks. etc. One settler, visiting here from the coastal district south of New Plymouth, declared that the dairy herd of a neighbor of his had practicallv paten the stockyard, constructed of wattle, put up to yard them in bv the milking shed, and that, having demolished that, they had tried to satisfy their extraordinary craving at the expense of a pig-stye built of sawn timber, presumably rimu, which had become somewhat softened by age and exposure. He, furthermore, avowed that his neighbor had had to fence in his firewood heap with barbed wire, to preserve it from their destructive attention. He also said thaf hie own cows showed signs of the same strange propensity, and that he was anxious to. learn of any treatment that would supply the animals with the particular substance which they evidently needed, and sought in such peculiar ways. He had top-dressed a paddock heavily with basic slag, got a luxuriant growth of grass on it, and turned his cows in to feed there in the hope that that would wean them from ihoir hnn* >nd stick chewing, but

without effect. Supplying them with plenty of salt also proved in vain, and his anxiety to hear of a remedy is still unsatisfied. After listening to his tale of woe, a local settler was accosted and the same subject broached. He at once showed interest and gave instances of his experience in the same line with his own cows. He had tried various remedies without good resulting, but lately he had treated one by drenching her with a pint of water, milk warm, in which, when at boiling a cupful of common salt had been dissolved, and since then, a period of about a fortnight, though she had been watched pretty carefully, she had not been seen to chew either bones or chips, a habit to which she had previously been particularly prone. He, too, would be glad to learn more about this. 'He says he is not certain that she has entirely given up her bad habit, but he thinks she has, and that he is going to try the same treatment on others of his herd, and will report results in due course. As showing the capabilities of land in the Inglewood district, the fact is worthy of note that, from a farm in the near neighborhood of the borough, a line of Down lambs averaging 3Slbs was despatched to a New Plymouth butchering firm on October 27. Another consignment from the same farm has since been sent, but the weights are not yet reported. These were produced on a farm on which dairying is successfully carried on. and the owner claims that the combination is working advantageously to both branches of the farming industry that he follows.