FATTENING AN OLD MILCH COW.

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1430, 1 September 1881, Page 4

FATTENING AN OLD MILCH COW.

This is geneially a .slow and expensive process. A writer in the Ohtrugn $<(/ tonal Lin Stoch Juioikil, who has ruade good boefofcous.it, 1C to 19 years of age, causing them to weigh lOOlbs to 2501bs more than nt any peiiod during their younger life, thus describes his process, which hollas, without exception, found sit the animal always a little mote than paying at the pail for all feed consumed and sometime!) a good deal moie ■— If the old cow is quite thin ,md skinny, as she is very likely to be. fehe should not be plied stiongly with corn meal on the .stait. This it, apt to make lit'i fevunsh, <md to induce a state opposed to thrifty fattening ; brsides, this feverish state will render her milk gargety. Give her slightly loosening and cooling food at first, such as pumpkin I*,1 *, potatoes, sweet apples, succulent rowon grass, one or two pounds of oil meal, cheap molasses and clover hay, or, better, green clover, and with any of these may bo given on the start one or two quaits ot corn meal per clay. The food must be giadually increased. A pint to three pints of cheap molasses, diluted witli tluee paits of water and mixed with one-half bushel of cut clover hay, will Keep the stomach and bowels in excellent condition when beginning the corn meal. And all these foods will make pi nne milk. Another food that will be found successful, and in many places cheap, is one bushel of flaxseed ground with iiftccn bushels of com. Tins flaxseed w ill render the corn meal just laxative enough tor health, and the rlaxseed is -\\oith, as food, all it usually costs. Cotton see<t meal may also be fed to adsautage up to three pounds per day. Lmsced meal made by the new pincess is e\i client to feed with corn meal, as it has a Luge piopoition of nitrogen, and thus balani.es the coin meal ; but two pounds pei day is sufficient of this. The principal gram food may properly be corn meal, which is usually cheaper for fattening than any other giain. Bran and corn meal go v ell together lor feeding an old cow, and aftei the <ow gets accustomed to the use of the gram you may feed her si\ quaits of bi.m .nul six quarts of corn meal in tluce feeds per day. It is always better to begin feeding her on pastiuc, Wiyinnnigthe use of gram lightly as mentioned, and increasing, little by little, up to her capacity. If the cow be }oung that you desire to get rid of because she is too small a milker, you may be sui pmed at her sudden unpiovemenf in milk when you tiy fattening her on the plan suggested. Many dairymen do not Know the capacity of their cows to gi\e milk, because they have never fairly tested it by full feeding.