Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1913-08-20
sSs.S.SS3.s.Ss.s'ss' Observation-Disclosures.
j. ANIMALS THAT EAT j.
II THEIR HEADS OFF. !.
s$ssS.sSSSS.S..S..S. Observation-Disclosures
Progressive Farmer.)

Every Progressive Farmer reader
has heard of such animals; most
readers have seen such; some, we
fear, have owned such. Indeed.
there are many more such animals
in the land than most farmers think;
and every such animal-every horse,
or COW, or pig which does not do
enough labor, give enough milk, put
on enough flesh to pay for feed con-
sumed and the care received by it
is positive injury to its owner.
Let's look at a few examples.
Some time ago Prof. j. F. Duggar
wrote us about some farms on which
the mules worked only 65 days in a
year. Prof. Duggar figured that each
days work done by one of these
mules cost $1.53. There are many
farms on which mules are kept a
whole year for 95 days work Each
one of these days work costs the
owner Of the mules a dollar. These
mules are ''eating their heads Off"
for the mule adds to the farm profits
only when he labors.
No reasonable man would blame
the mules for this failure to pay their
board. They were there waiting for
work to do. The fault was clearly
with the owners who arranged-or
disarranged-their farming so that
the work-stock was left idle most Of
the year. 1t is safe to say, too, that
on these farms-every reader knows
what was raised on them and how
they were managed-there were
times when more mules were badly
needed These farmers made the
mistake Of trying to put a whole
farm into one crop, whole years
farming into five or six months.
Take another example,: There are
thousands Of COWS that do not pro-
duce $50 pounds Of butter-fat in a
year. Some Of them fail because they
are too poorly fed to do it; many
others fail simply because they are
not that kind of a cow"-because
they have not been bred for milk
production, and simply cannot con-
vert enough feed into milk to pay for
their upkeep. Every such COW as this
in dairy herd decreases her own
ers profits instead Of increasing
them; and the owner is simply MAX
ing himself poor working to feed
that cow.
Yet it is folly to blame the old
cow. She is doing the best she can
for herself; and II isn't her business
to think for her owner 1t is his
business to get the scales ana a milk
testing oUtat and find OF. what The
COW Is doing If she is living on his
labor, the thing for her is to go first
to the fattening pen and then to the
slaughter house.
One more example,: In some places
one can see hogs in bare lots or in
little dirty pens waiting patiently
or impatiently-for feeding time and
their bucket Of swill and armful Of
Sol ii. oollSlllllcS IuSSe mugs are
thin; sometimes they are fat; but
it is safe to say that almost every
one Of them is "eating his head off"
right there in plain sight of his
owner.
1t would be foolish, however, to
blame the hogs for this. If they had
some alfalfa Or cowpeas or soy beans,
or skim milk to mix with the corn
or rather to mix the corn with-they
would pay bigger prices for it than
the farmer would be likely to get
anywhere else.
Three great reasons there are,
then, why farm animals "eat their
heads off,: CD They are not kept
at work; GU they are Of the wrong
type, and CD they are not properly
fed. And the owner, rather than the
animal, is at fault in all three cases.
IInuSuoI Conca for Diyprca