Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1877-04-25
+ ARM AND FlRES\DE.
Raising Calves,

Like everything else pertaining to
farm, raising calves requires good judg-
ment and experience. It is best al
ways 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
the calf can be easily taught to drink
milk when four or five days old. 1t is
important that the calfshould take its
first sustenance from the COW, to enable
it to discharge the fetal nutriment in
its stomach and bowels, and to give it
strength for its future development. I'll
a 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 butch
er, it should be killed as soon as the
milk becomes good, but fit 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, ii a
farmer has any cows which give poor
milk, that should be fed to calves,
because it is not the cream that nour-
ishes them so much as other properties
of the milk. When four or five weeks
old they may be fed on buttermilk.
1t is good management to feed calves,
in connection with their milk. when
about 10 days old, a little cooked meal.
At first, take nearlya tablespoonful of
Indian, oat, Or barley meal, and cook
it in little water then mix it with the
milk, and increase the quantity Of meal
as the calves grow older. Flax-seedI
boiled to Jelly and mixed with milk,
when the calves are 10 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 great degree on the manner
in which they are treated when calves.
Let them be fed three times a day at
regular hours, and as 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 half starve their calves
TO save few cents, and you have oc-
cular demonstration Of what stinting
calves in their feed will do.
When calves are old enough to begin
to eat hay or grass, if confined in a
stable or yard, little fine. sweet hay,
or grass, should be placed within their
reach. 1t may be tied with a cord, and
suspended where they can nibble at it,
and ia few weeks, when about four
months old, they may be turned out to
pasture, still giving them little meal
and water once a day for a week or
two. They should have fresh water in
their pasture, which should produce an
abundance of good grass, and they will
go into winter quarters in fine condition.
Then, let them be fed on good, fine
sweet hay, with fodder corn (sweet cut
and cured as soon as it begins to tassel;
and little meal Of any kind and when
they are two or three years old, 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 farmer expecting to raise fine
stock of any kind, untless he attends
thoroughly to their wants through all
the stages oftheir growth. Ifhe grows
a good crop of corn, it must be fed, and
the weeds exterminated-no halfway
work; and the same rule applies to his
live stock.-The Rural New- Yorker.