TRAINING HEIFERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 December 1938, Page 3

TRAINING HEIFERS

SHOULD COMMENCE WHEN YOUNG. Heavy milking cows are always quiet and docile. They stand chewing the cud from first to last and appear to enjoy milk-giving, but the nervous animals are unsettled and uncertain. Heifers that are never touched until they calve often tremble with fear of their attendant or become' ill-natured and obstinate. Their refusal to allow anyone to milk them sometimes results in the udders going wrong. The first calf is a turning point with many animals, as it is then they become either docile or vicious. A heifer’s training should commence when she is quite young. When put out in the fields as yearlings, and hardly ever handled from their calf days until they calve, it is not to be wondered at that they become permanently timid or acquire kicking and resentful habits that cling to them all their days and make them more of a nuisance than an asset to the herd. If the training cannot commence early a heifer should always be taken in hand a week or so before calving. { She can be brought into the shed : daily, tied up like the older cows, gi- i ven a general rub-down, etc. Also, the udder can be rubbed gently as it dis- I tends and the hands drawn over the i teats. Only in this way is she likely to i be quiet and tractable. 1 — ' ' i