The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-08-04
COPIOUS MILKING COWS.
Risks Which Can Always be Avoided by
Careful Management.


organs. with corresponding yield of
milk, is very desirable in a COW; but,
like all other good things, it has its
drawbacks. These are the inevitable
trouble before and after calving, and
the d niger of garget, or milk fever;
but these risks can always be avoided
by judiciOus and careful management.
1t is not impossible for a dairyman to
get through twenty-five or thirty years
Of experience with cows without having
any accident or trouble in any way
whatever with his cows at the most
critical periods; yet some have had
frequent bad luck( Gas it is termed
at such times with their best COWS. /
have always believed that bad luck
should be a synonym for carelessneSs,
neglect, and bad management, and
that good or bad luck is the result of
ose's own carefulness or mistakes. 1t
is especially so in regard TO the man
agement of cows, especially the heavy
milkerS and those which are hard to
dry of, and also with young heifers
with their first calves; and the manage
ment of the latter should be precisely
the same in principle as that of the
former. The greatest trouble with
heavy mixers approaching the period
of ca,ving is in reducing the flow OF
milk. A good deal of unnecessary
trouble, however, is borrowed in this
direction. 1t is a popular idea that it
is indispensable that the cow should be
dried off before she calves. chiefly for
the reason that otherwise the calf will
suffer. With ordinary cows there is no
difficulty in this matter, because the
milk secretion begins to fail almost as
soon as the cow becomes pregnant, and
the trouble is rather to retain the flow
of milk than to lessen it. But with
'copious and persistent mixers, which
keep on milking, the owner becomes
alarmed when the time has passed at
which the other cows are dry, and
imagines all sorts of mischief. Now,
1t is simply question of adequate feed
ing and nutrition whether a cow can
keep on milking and produce strong,
healthy calf or not; for there is no
draft whatever on the system that can
not be supplied and made up by proper
food. If the food is of the
right kind and of sufficient guam
tity. there is no reason whatever for
the owner to make any special efforts
to dry the cow. Usually the milk Sc
erection is small, varying from three to
fourteen ounces of solid matter, of
which large part is fat, so that there
is no special necessity for any very
great change in the feeding excepting
to supply the needed phosphates and
the nitrogen for. the building up of the
frame of the calf. The kind of food
most required is bran, which is rich
in these two elements, as indeed in all
the elements of both milk and blood,
which in point of fact, consist essen
italy of the very same substances. and
two pounds of bran would amply sup
ply all the material required for the
perfection of the fetus.
The great mischief is done by unwise
efforts to dry up the cow, under the
impression that some great injury will
happen unless the fiowof milk is stopped.
/ have known farmers and dairy
men to battle the udder with solution
of alum, decoction of oak or willow
bark, and even give these deleterious
substances to the cow for the purpose
of driving the milk. At times thew sue
coed in arresting the flow; but they do
so only by producing an attack of gar
get, with all its accompanying mis-
chiefs. Nothing should ever be applied
to the udder outwardly for such pur-
pose as this. If one wants TO stop a
stream. the flow must be arrested at its
source; by damming it the flow is
simply turned in another direction, and
this is precisely what is done in efforts
to stop the milk by outward applica-
tons. The udder NAV be contracted
or the contents may be absorbed. as
when iodine is used; but the milk is
merely thrown back into the blood with
the effect of producing inflammation
and congestion of the glands, and Sc
rious injury is caused. The milk may
be stopped by reducing the food; but
this is injurious, because the calf
may suffer instead of the milk secre-
ton. The only way is to rely upon
Nature, supplying such food as is re-
quired and giving no other. Corn
meal, and especially cotton-seed meal,
should be avoided; bran only should be
used, and this should be given dry; and
whatever milk is produced should be
drawn with regularity, the udder be-
ing drained perfectly dry every time. |
1t is not safe to leave little milk in |
the udder in the hope of drying the |
cow. This will not do with large milk |
ers, as it clogs the milk ducts and en-
gorges the very small secreting lobules
of the glands, which, during milking,
are in active stimulation, and thus
gives these very sensitive organs a Sc
we're shock, which NAV result in an at
tack of garget or pave the way for milk |
fever. 1t is best not to make any effort |
whatever to check the milk secretion, |
but at the same time not to encourage |
it by the use of sloppy food; also to
avoid all infiammatory tendencies bv |
refraining from highly carbonaceous
and heterogeneous food. as the oil meals, |