Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1877-06-14
Feeding and care Of Cows.

WE will take this as the first operation
in the management of dairying; as it is
very essential that mich COWS should be
furnished at all times with an abundant
supply of sweet nutritious food and pure
water; also kept in good condition and
perfect health.
Cows are living machines-milk- manu-
featuring machines; and if not provided
with good fuel and water, the machinery
lags and stops. When mich COWS are
confined on scanty feed, requiring con-
siderable portion of their time to get
requisite supply of food, or are obliged to
travel long distances for drink, they will
secrete much less milk, and of a poorer
quality, than when they can fill them
selves quickly with sweet wholesome food,
and then lie down in the shade and quietly
ruminate their food and manufacture
milk from it, as their milk is made from
what they eat, and will contain properties
of it; therefore, COWS should have such
food as will yield milk of the best quail
ties for butter making, and that which
will produce the most of it. Grass is con-
sidered the most natural, cheapest and
best, but as to the kinds of grasses that
are best we are not fully competent to rec
Ommend, but from our observation and
experience, can say that butter of excel
lent quality is made from herds grass,
white clover and the different kinds of
June grasses.
No cow can produce pure and healthy
milk without she has pure and healthy
food and drink. Whatever may cause an
unhealthy condition of a COW, it will be
sure to deteriOrate her milk, and nothing
will be more sure to do this than scanty
and poor food and drink, rough treatment
and exposures. A neglected or thin few
erish COW will not only yield diminished
profit, but she will give feverish milk if
any; or if there is anything wrong about
her, it will affect her milk; or if she eats
anything that has strong Or disagreeable
odor, it will surely appear in her milk,
cream and the butter produced from it, as
her milk is one source she has of casting
off filth from her organism. These facts
should at all times be well impressed up
on the minds of farmers, but more es-
pecially in the spring of the year, when
cows are liable to be thin and more or less
feverish. Many farmers keep their COWS
confined in stanchions too great portion
of the time through the long winter, and,
too, in small ill-ventilated stables, where
they cannot always get fresh pure air,
neither can they have proper exercise and
water at all times when desired and need
ed by them.
Some allow their COWS to lie out of
doors, exposed to the winter storms and
piercing winds, with scarcely shed for
them to get under, which certainly cannot
be good economy, for, by such exposures,
they will require much more food and
they will not be in as good condition in
the spring. IT will require great por-
ton of the summer, and good feed, for
them to make UP this lost condition. and,
too, in the best er-making season;
neither will they yield as much milk, nor
as rich milk, as they would if they had
had good care through the winter and
were in good condition. In winter, and
especially in the spring, COWS need special
attention and care. They should have clean,
warm, spacious stables, we'll ventilated,
and a variety of wholesome food in album
dance, especially well cured, early cut,
fine hay, also good water; and in summer
they should be provided with good pastur-
age in abundance, with plentiful supplies
OF running water, and shade trees or sheds
to protect them from the intense rays of
the sun. There should be sowed corn, or
other green heritage, on hand for all feed
ing. especially in dry autumn, and laier
as frosty weather apprOaches.-J. p. Cor
BIN in Western R1Lr1L -