River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1877-04-12
Raising Calves.

Like everything else pertaining W d
farm, raising calves requires good
judgment 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 inn
portant that the calf should take its
first sustenance from the cow. Ii
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 as soon as
the milk becomes good, but if 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; conse.
quently if farmer has any COWS
which give poor milk, that should be
fed to calves, because 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.
1t is good management to feed
calves in connection with their milk,
when about ten days old,a little cooked
meal. At first take nearly a table,
spoonful 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 seed boiled to jelly and
mixed with milk when the calves are
ten days old is good for them. 1t is
poor policy to stint calves that are
worth raising, as their future develop
ment as good cows depends 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 do
ing. Look at the poor unsightly ami
mails in the yards of farmers who half
starve their calves to save few cents,
and you have occular demonstration of
what stinting calves in their feed will
do.
When calves are old enough to be-
gin 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 in few weeks, when
about four months old, they may be
turned out to pasture, still giving them
little meal and water once day for
a week or two. They should have
fresh water in their pasture, which
should produce an abundance of gooa
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 a
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 a farmer expecting to
raise fine stock of any kind, unless he
attends thoroughly to their wants
through all the stages of their growth.
If he grows good crop of corn it
must be fed, and the weeds extermi.
nated-no halfway work;and the same
rule applies to his live stock.