The Osceola times., 1877-04-21
Raising Calves.

Like everything else pertaining to a
farm, raising calves requires good iudg-
ment and experience. 1t is best always
to leave the calf with the COW several
days, until the fever is out of the bag
and the milk good for family use, and
with proper management the calf can be
easily taught to drink milk when four or
five days old. 1t is important that the
calf should take its first sustenance from
the COW. If calf is of no value to
rear, or if the milk is worth more than
the cost of feeding four or five weeks for
the butcher, it should be killed "a soon
as the milk becomes good, but il it is to
be raised, it should have pure milk for
about ten days, when little skinned
milk may be added to the unskimmed
by degrees, till it may be fed entirely on
skinned milk. 1t has been shown by
abundant tests that calves will thrive as
well on the poorest butter producing
milk as on the best; consequently, il a
farmer has any cows which give poor
milk, that should be fed to calves, be-
cause it is not the cream that nourishes
them so much as other properties of the
milk. When four or five weeks old they
may be fed on buttermilk.
II is good management TO feed calves,
in connection with their milk, when
about ten days old, little cooked meal.
At first, take nearly tablespoonful of
Indian, oat, or barely meal, and cook it
in n little water then mix it with the
milk, and increase the quantity of meal
az the calves grow older. Flax. seed
boiled 10 a Jelly and mixed with milk,
when the calves are ten days old, is good
for them. 1t is poor policy to stint
calves which are worth raising, as their
future development as good cows depends
in a great degree on the manner in which
they are treated when calves. Let them
be fed three times day at regular hours,
and rs much as will satisfy them, and in
the end their owners will never be losers
by so doing Look at the poor, unsightly
animals in the yards Of farmers who halt
starve their calves TO save few cents,
and you have occular demonstration of
what stinting calves in their feed willdo.
When calves are old enough TO begin
70 eat hay or grass, If confined in stable
or yard, little fine, sweet hay, or grass,
should be placed within their reach. 1t
may be tied with cord, and suspended
where they can nibble at it, and in few
weeks, when about four months old, they
may be turned ont 10 pasture, still giving
them little meal and water once day
for week or two. They sheuld have
fresh water in their pasture, which
should produce an abundance of good
grass, and they will 20 inte winter quar-,
ters in fine condition. Then let them
be fed on good, fine, sweet hay, with
fodder corn (swoet cut and cured as
soon as it begins to tassel; and little
meal Of any kind and when they are
two or three years cid you will have
stock that you will not be ashamed to
have your neighbors see. Even the
milk that such cows will give will be
much more than if they were poorly fed
when calves. There is no use in a
farmer expecting to raise fine stock OF
any kind, unless he attends thoroughly
TO their wants through all the stages Of
their growth. lf he grows a good crop
of corn it must be fed, and the weeds
exterminated-no halfway work; and
the ame rule applies to his livestock
Rural NcW Yorker.