Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-09-08
HOW TO RAISE CALVES.
Three Things That Must Be Carefully and
ConsclentiOusly Observed.


After thirty years experience In
rearing calves. during which time l
have tried both raising by hand and
allowing them to run with the cows. l
am decidedly in favor of the former
plan. First, because it is cheaper,
and. also, because a calf raised by
hand seldom gives trouble by sucking.
To raise good, thrifty calf by hand
requires care, but so does any thing
that is done we'll. l prefer to let the
calf remain with its mother three
days, rs 1t is best for both mother and
calf, as the milk at first contains pur-
gative qualities needed for the calf,
and it also will develop a healthy APP
petite, which will make it easier to
teach it to drink. When taken
from the mother shut the calf
In a stall or pen about three
by six feet; this will give
it plenty of room until it is several
weeks old. AS rule, there will be
little trouble to teach calf to drink,
but you will need to exercise patience
for a day or two. Give the calf new
,milk-from three to four q uarts at q
.feed-for week or ten days. or I'M
til You see it is fairly started to grow.
Then substitute SKINNED milk.
warmed to The temperature of new
milk. and with small amount of oat-
meal to replace the cream. Begin
with a tablespoonful to gallon of
milk. Prepare it by pouring boiling
water over it. and let it thicken to a
jelly before mixing it with the milk.
A pound of the meal will thicken two
and q half gallons of water. The
amount of meal may be increased
gradually to gill, or possibly more.
BY the time the calf is three weeks
old, you should begin to teach it to
eat. Place small handful of good,
bright hay-clover preferred--where he
can reach it. Throw handful of
shelled corn in his trough, and dust q
small quantity of wheat bran into it
daily. l think many calves are I'M
thrifty simply because they are not
furnished coarse food soon enough.
BY the time your calf is three months
old, you should have it eating hay or
grass and bran as regularly as COW,
and then you can begin to diminish
its allowance of milk, and in two
weeks you may reduce the milk to a
quart at a feed, just enough to color
the mess, which will then consist of
pint of bran and a gill of meal made
into q gallon of cruel and colored with
the milk. Keep this up until your calf
is five or six months old, or until it
eats dry bran readily, and make no
sudden changes of diet Shelled corn,
at the rate of q pint day, is good for
it while on full-milk feed, but bran
and oats should take the place of corn
rs the milk is decreased.
Three things must be carefully OBJ
served If you expect your calf to re-
main thrifty, and avoid indigestion
and scours, and these are, temperature
Of food, regular quantity and regular
hours of feeding. With careful atten-
ton to these points you may get all
the butter from your cow and grow
smooth. thrifty calf, which will be
worth just as much at year old as
though it had sucked.
you wish to produce long-haired.
pot-bellied animals, have no regular
hour for feeding. but do it any where
from five TO nine o clock; give some-
times three quarts and again six or
eight and feed il sometimes hot and
sometimes cold, keep them in filthy
pen and furnish then nothing but
milk, and if they do not die Of scours
which they probably will-you will
have some fine samples of scalawags,
such as are quoted at 81. rs to 81. so
per 100 pounds. would rather raise
fall calf than one born in the spring.
1t can be kept in warm stable through
the winter and fed so that it will be
thrifty, and then it goes to pasture for
a long season of growth. and by the
next winter is almost a COW, while the
summer calf has long winter before
it after it has been fed through
the summer. A COW that comes in
fresh in October will give more milk
and make more butter in year than
one that comes in fresh in the spring,
and there will be more months of high
priced butter. also. The dairyman
who tries fall calves will soon be con-
vlnced that there is more profit from
the milk and better developed calves
than from the usual custom of breed
ing for spring. Waldo F. Bro,on. in
Farm and FireSide.