Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and PoultryPratt Food Company
Science
Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry
Pratt Food Company
Livestock; Poultry
When milk has been the chief food, and the weaning is sudden, usually
growth will be more or less arrested. When sustained largely on other
foods, the change may be made without any check to the growth, even in
the case of calves that suck their dams. When hand raised, the quantity
of milk is gradually reduced until none is given. In the case of sucking
calves they should be allowed to take milk once a day for a time before
being shut entirely away from the dams. The supplementary food should be
strengthened as the milk is withheld.
Calves should have constant access to good water, even during the milk
period, and also to salt.
Where many are fed simultaneously, the milk should be given in pails
kept scrupulously clean. The pails should be set in a manger, but not
until the calves have been secured by the neck in suitable stanchions.
As soon as they have taken the milk, a little meal should be thrown into
each pail. Eating the dry meal takes away the desire to suck one
another.
Calves of the dairy, dual purpose, and beef breeds may be reared by hand
along the same lines, but with the following points of difference:
(1) The dual types want to carry more flesh than the dairy types, and
the beef types more than either.
(2) To secure this end, more and richer milk must be given to calves of
the beef type, especially during the first weeks of growth. Forcing
calves of the beef type would be against the highest development
attainable. Until the milking period is reached, the food and general
treatment for the three classes is the same. They should be in fair
flesh until they begin to furnish milk.
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_Coshocton, Ohio.
With good care and Pratts Animal Regulator (which I have used for
two years) this Jersey calf grew like a weed. I can prove what it
has done for my cow and calves.
MRS. ELLEN BUTZ._
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When calves come in the autumn, the heifers enter the first winter
strong and vigorous. They should be so fed that growth will be
continuous right through the winter, but on cheap foods. It is different
with animals for the block, which should have grain every winter until
sold, when reared on the arable farm, unless roots are freely fed, when
they may be carried through the winter in fine form on straw and
cornstalks, feeding some hay toward spring. They may be fed in an open
or a closed shed, and without being tied when dehorned as they ought to
be when not purely bred. It is a good time to dehorn them when about one
year old, as they will be more peaceful subsequently than if the horns
had never been allowed to grow. The bedding should be plentiful and they
should have free access to water and salt.
[Illustration: ~HEREFORD BULL~]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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