Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their CureJennings, Robert
Science
Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their Cure
Jennings, Robert
Cattle -- Diseases
the prizes were generally adjudged to the plowman who worked with spayed
heifers; and although there was no connection between that subject and
the facts which he should state, it was, nevertheless, the cause that
first directed his mind into the train of thought and reasoning which
finally induced him to make the experiments, which resulted in the
discovery of the facts which he detailed, and which I will narrate as
accurately as my memory will enable me to do it, after the lapse of more
than twenty years. Mr. Winn's frequent reflections had (he said) led him
to the belief "that if cows were spayed soon after calving, and while in
a full flow of milk, they would continue to give milk for many years
without intermission, or any diminution of quantity, except what would
be caused by a change from green to dry, or less succulent food." To
test this hypothesis, Mr. Winn caused a very good cow, then in full
milk, to be spayed. The operation was performed about one month after
the cow had produced her third calf; it was not attended with any severe
pain, or much or long continued fever. The cow was apparently well in a
few days, and very soon yielded her usual quantity of milk, and
continued to give freely for several years without any intermission or
diminution in quantity, except when the food was scarce and dry; but a
full flow of milk always came back upon the return of a full supply of
green food. This cow ran in the Mississippi low grounds or swamp near
Natchez, got cast in deep mire, and was found dead. Upon her death, Mr.
Winn caused a second cow to be spayed. The operation was entirely
successful. The cow gave milk constantly for several years, but in
jumping a fence stuck a stake in her bag, that inflicted a severe wound,
which obliged Mr. Winn to kill her. Upon this second loss, Mr. Winn had
two other cows spayed, and, to prevent the recurrence of injuries from
similar causes with those which had occasioned him the loss of the first
two spayed cows, he resolved to keep them always in the stable, or some
safe enclosure, and to supply them regularly with green food, which that
climate throughout the greater part of, if not all, the year enabled him
to procure. The result, in regard to the last two spayed cows, was, as
in the case of the first two, entirely satisfactory, and fully
established, as Mr. Winn believed, the fact, that the spaying of cows,
while in full milk, will cause them to continue to give milk during the
residue of their lives, or until prevented by old age. When I saw the
last two spayed cows it was, I believe, during the third year that they
had constantly given milk after they were spayed. The character of Mr.
Winn (now deceased) was highly respectable, and the most entire
confidence could be reposed in the fidelity of his statements; and as
regarded the facts which he communicated in relation to the several cows
which he had spayed, numerous persons with whom I became acquainted,
fully confirmed his statements."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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