Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-12-25
On the Management Of Cattle.

To make the most money out Of a given
product, every care has to be used in the
manipulation, from the inception to the
perfect finish of the article. The same
rule will apply to the raising and manage
mcnt Of stock.
We must not expect good animals from
calves that are allowed to get thin and
weak every winter until they are finally
turned off to the butcher. We cannot re
alize excellent beeves or breeders from
calves that have only had skinned milk
from the time they were two weeks old,
until they were ten weeks old, with such
grass as their hunger may have forced
them to eat, although they have been
thenceforth, through the summer, given
good pasturage, and we'll fed through the
winter. They will never thereafter be
able to digest and assimilate the necessa-
ry quantity of food to make heavy beef.
They will always be 'runts." We can
never get first class stock if the animal,
of whatever kind, be allowed to shrink
seriously from the time Of its birth until
it reach maturity.
Too many farmers seem entirely to for
get that the true object to be aimed at is,
the steady and progressive Improvement
OF the animal through all the different
stages of its growth. Growth is constant
process, and if checked it is at the eX-
pense of the animal itself, and can never
be entirely resumed, for the flesh required
is at the expense of a certain additional
amount of food, whose equivalent has
been wasted in the act of getting poor
Therefore, to say nothing of the economy
in many other directions that might be
named, certain amount of food has at
least been lost.
There are various ideas among our
farmers as to the best means of raising
the calf; some contending that the animal
should suck the milk directly from the
dam, others contending that equally good
calves may be raised by feeding the calf
| new milk, warm from the cow, giving less
and less milk, as the can increases in age
the decrease being supplemented with
| ground feed until the calf learns to sub
sist entirely without milk. Certain it is
| that good calves are raised by both these
means, and that the calf by the latter plan
| earlier learns to eat. However this may
be, if the calf have not an abundance o
new milk, during the first three months
of its life it will never make a satisfac
tory mature animal, from critical stand
point.
1t may be therefore set down as an ak
ION that, to get the best results possible
an animal must progress constantly from
its birth upward The advantage gained
in the first week or month, must be sup
plemented by progressive and continue
Announcements; to attain which, not ONLY
the kind, quantity and quality of tn
food given must be looked to, but also
the care and attention paid to the comfor
and well-being of the animal
In the West there is no lack of cheal
food. Grain is plenty and cheap. TIL
! Western Rural has heretofore clearly
shown the necessity and economy of feed
| ing this cheap food to stock rather thai
that the farmer impoverish himself il
the vain attempt to make ends meet b,
the expectation of the coarse grains. TIL
| time is not far distant when this will COM
to be generally appreciated and under
stood. The great and crying want of tn