Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-03-28
Miseellaneolls.
WE SHOULD RAISE MORE CALVES.

At this season of the year the farmer
looks for an increase in the number of his
cattle and what is of more Importance his
COWS begin to yield him profit. The
profit from the cows in butter and cheese
is often considered the chief thing, and
the calves are killed when four or five days
old, or as soon as their stomachs have be-
come accustomed to food and its digestion,
and are in condition to be used as rennet,
the skin of calf is worth about 81 .25 and
and the stomach or rennet 25 cents.
In view of the high price of all kinds of
cattle for the past two years something
should be done to prevent this annual
slaughter.
The remedy which ! would suggest, is
that these calves should be raised instead
of being offered up as holocaust on the
altar of mammon; for this and nothing
else it is. Dairymen have an idea that the
raising of young stock will interfere with
butter making, and butter brings money,
cheesemaking uses up all the milk.
Let us consider whether we cannot rec
oncile these apparently conflicting inter-
ests, and whilst butter and cheese continue
to be produced, a stock Of young cattle
may at the same time be coming on, in
which there will be money" ~ "i
Suppose that in every dairy region and
the neighborhood of every cheese factory,
some one, two or three farmers shall
undertake as business, the raising of all
the good calves that can be collected from
his neighbors, who wishing to get rid of
them, only value them for their respective
hides, Deacon skins as they are called y
Most farmers, all who have right feelings,
would prefer even giving them away, to
| ssc1o, nf xho
Cheese-makers themselves may raise
calves with very little trouble. When the
calf is two or three weeks old, whey or
skim milk with oil-meal, may be substitut-
ed for new milk without detriment to the
calf, and at considerable saving in the
cost of food. The change, however, from
new milk to skim milk and oil-meal, or to
whey and oil-meal, should be very grad
ual, and may be made by increasing the
quantity of the skim milk or whey, and
diminishing the quantity of new milk from
feeding to feeding until the change is ef-
fected
Ny practice (Which do not claim to be
the best, which has been very satisfac-
tory to me) is as follows: As soon as
commence making cheese every day, dip
off sufficient whey for the nights feeding
as soon as it separates from the curd, and
heati it in boiling hot then having wet up in
small quantity of whey or water the
amount of oil meal wish to feed at night
put it into a tub or cask (white oak or ash
is best. and turn on the boiling whey.
This will cook the oil meal sufficiently,
and at the same time prevent the whey
from souring, even during the most un-
favorable weather, and if covered up will
be warm enough to feed at night when the
weather is COOL and uncovered will be
about the right temperature (90o) when
theweather is warm. 4..
For the mornings feed use whey alone,
and take it from the vat as soon as whey
gets up to about 900, which it soon does,
in the process of cooking the cheese, If
oil meal is used with skim milk to feed
calves, it should be cooked by turning
upon it sufficient boiling water to cook it
thoroughly. but in either case it is necessa-
~ to first wet the meal, to prevent its
Jumping. Oil meal, OF what is the same
thing, oil cakes ground fine, is the best
substitute for the fatty matter taken from
the milk in the manufacture of butter and
cheese that have found, and calves fed
upon it, cooked and fed rs above directed,
will do well without any new milk"
II calf begins to scour it should be
stopped as soon as possible by diminishing
the quality or quantity of feed. or by add
ing solution of rennet, or a decoction of
hemloek or oak bark, or of the plant called
''snake' s-head, > .'hog's-toolh,'' - or "bella-
donna" a very bitter plant that grows in
lowlands, and has white blossom, from
the shape of which it has received its first
name. Chalk put within their reach is
preventive, if eaten. Dry earth is also
used.
Those who keep cows to sell milk, may
be benefited by word in regard to the
practice of a gentleman in Chester county,
II practical as well as book farmer, who
sells milk and still raises calves from his
thoroughbred Durham cows. He gives
them milk four weeks, when their diet is
changed to oil meal gruel made by putting
ut the rate of one pound of oil meal to if
teen of water, and boiling half an hour,
giving about this quantity to each twice a
day. His calves do well, and as milk is
six cents per quart, sixteen quarts would
be ninety-siX cents; oil meal at three and
one-fourths cents per pound, costs six and
one-half cents per day. If, however, milk
was fed it probably would be skinned
milk, which would reduce the expense. l
could fill this sheet with names of men who
have raised good large calves upon a
mixed diet OF skinned milk, hay tea, or
Cruel OF different kinds of meal.
1t is common saying among dairymen
that if calf will not do we'll upon skinned
milk, it is not worth raising. My expert
ence and observation leads me to believe
there is much difference in calves. Some
will not do so well their digestive organs
seem weak, and this weakness is, judge,
sometimes inherited. Calves from cows
that are very hardy, and have been well
fed, are likely to do better than from a
COW with poor constitution and straw or
starvation diet
Calves should be kept separate, each in
a pen or tied by itself, as they injure each
other by bunting and sucking .-Americas
Stock Journal