Cost Of Keep

Cows are large consumers of food and should not be stinted when in milk. Heifers will require nothing but green food in the dry summer months; but as the winter approaches they should be sheltered in a yard at night, and a little fresh barley or oat straw given them in their cribs; whenever the pastures become injured by frost, both young and old cows require improved food in their sheds. A few swedish-turnips or mangold roots should then be given them, which, if pulped and mixed with sweet chaff (one-fourth hay), would be sufficient to keep them in healthy condition; but this applies only to those that are not in milk. When within two months of calving, all cows should be dried, for if not then dried they will not produce so much milk the next year. They should afterwards have their food improved by an additional weight of roots with their chaff, which should be mixed in a heap over night. By the morning it will be found to have heated a little, which imparts a flavour that is much relished by the cows.

Consumption Of Food

As was before remarked, "cows are large consumers of food," and no wonder that they should require an abundance, to enable them to supply so rich a sustenance for mankind, as well as to support themselves. Where there are no good dry pastures to provide them with plenty for their summer keep, they would do very well in a proper feeding-house (enclosed on the north and south sides) with a door at each end, if they were liberally supplied with green food, cut for them and put in racks; such as rye grass, clover, tares, lucerne, or saintfoin. The two last grow best on chalky soils. Italian grass would be fit to cut first in the spring. It has been found that milk as abundant and butter quite as good have been produced by cows so fed, as by those which had the run of rich pastures. But where there are pastures it would be well to have the cows housed in hot weather, when insects are troublesome; or else they will be worried and heated and unable to feed, and will fall off in their produce of milk.

Coarse grass in low meadows is thought by some people to be proper food for milch cows, but it has not been found that the quantity or quality of milk produced by cows so fed is equal to that of those which are fed on good pasture of a less aqueous quality.

A large cow will consume a cwt. of green food per day, which could not be valued at less than sixpence or eightpence. The general charge for pasturage is from 3s. 6d. to 4s. a week each.

When green food is scarce, as it is sometimes at the end of a dry summer, a little linseed-cake or bean-meal, mixed with cut chaff (one third hay) should be given them to keep up the produce of milk, lest part of the best season for dairying should be lost by its failure.

It is not good economy to feed cows on much uncut hay, for they would consume and spoil a cwt. a day, if fed entirely on it; which at the rate of 4/. a ton would cost 14s. a week; neither is it found that any of the advertised condiments are worth their cost. Much less expensive and more natural condiments can be made by a mixture of bean, barley, maize, or linseed meal, and other produce of the soil, by cow-keepers themselves.

Milk Dairies

When cows are kept only for the purpose of producing a large quantity of milk, brewers' grains are given them, with a small portion of hay, for ruminating purposes. On this they do tolerably well, but it will be found to their advantage if about three or four pounds of bean-meal be mixed with the grains for each cow per day.

Winter Food

In winter and spring, Swedish turnips, mangold, and other root crops would be found more economical food than the grains, meal, and hay last mentioned. A bushel of pulped roots mixed with about fourteen pounds of cut chaff, one-third hay, and given them twice a day, would be found sufficient to satisfy a moderate-sized cow, but they should not be stinted or confined to any quantity if they are found to require more. Cabbages, carrots, and parsnips are very good food for milch cows if given in moderate quantities with other food. It is important that all roots should be freed from earth before pulping, or given to the cows, otherwise it would impart an unpleasant flavour to the cream. When cows are fed on pulped roots, with cut chaff, a peck or two of malt-dust ("combs") would be a nice addition, as it would give a zest to the mixture. A sufficient quantity for the whole herd should be put into a heap about twelve hours before it would be wanted, when it would be found to have acquired a little warmth and a fragrant smell, which would give the cows a greater relish for it.

A change of green or succulent food appears to promote the secretions of the system, and to give stimulus to their action. Such as would injure the flavour of milk should be avoided. White turnips and cabbages will do this, if given without a good supply of other food with them.

London cow-keepers do not usually keep their cows longer than they continue to give milk, but when they have been milked seven or eight months, and their milk falls off, they give them an increase of fattening food till they are quite dry, when they will have become fat and fit for the butcher, and fresh ones are bought to take their places. The best milkers are, however, in many cases kept to come in another year, if they can be accommodated with the run of a strawyard or pasture; where they might remain if sheltered from inclement weather, till near the time of their calving.

Weaning Calves

Where there is accommodation for rearing young cow stock, the best males and females should be selected for propagating a good breed. It would not do, however, for those who expect to make a profit by dairy-farming, to purchase animals at the fabulous prices of hundreds and thousands of pounds, such as we read of at the sales of first-class breeders. Very excellent animals can be found now of various breeds, and calves chosen from the best of them, though not very high in price, will be as good for dairy purposes as the most celebrated stock. A selection should be carefully made from mothers which are the best milkers, with full-size udders, wide rounded hips, straight backs, and broad chests, with small tapering legs; and bulls with broad breast, projecting a little before their legs, with neck rising from their shoulders, moderate-size heads, flat broad straight backs, well filled up behind their shoulders and between their ribs and hips, with small straight legs and rounded bodies. Large sunken bodies are generally brought on by poor keep.

Animals kept on straw and sedgy meadows only, while young, are usually disfigured by their bodies becoming unnaturally protruded.

Watchfulness Required

When cows are expected to calve (at the end of forty weeks) they should be carefully watched night and day, and where the weaning of the calf is intended, it would be best for them to calve at the end of February or the beginning of March, as they would then have the whole of the grass season before them. Calves will soon learn to drink from a pail; but it is generally thought best to allow them to suck from their mothers for a few days, while the herdsman milks on the opposite side. The cow will give down her milk the better for it, and become reconciled to his milking her without the calf afterwards, if treated with gentle kindness.

The calf should have new milk for a fortnight twice a day; then skimmed milk mixed with oatmeal or linseed meal, boiled for half an hour, during another fortnight or three weeks. It will require about two gallons a day till it begins to eat well, which it will do when it is five or six weeks old, if some sweet hay be given it daily, or some hay chaff with pulped mangold or swedes mixed with it. Skimmed milk, or whey mixed with a little linseed meal, will then do for its drink, which may be continued till it is twelve weeks old, when it would live very well on a pasture or on natural food. Some people wean calves almost entirely on linseed tea.

Summer Treatment

When the weather is warm, and the flies become troublesome, they ought not to be left in their pasture without shade or shelter. If well shaded during the heat of the day, and supplied with pure water and some green food in their cribs, they will most likely continue to thrive; but if left to be tormented with flies, huddled together in a corner of their pasture, or in a wet ditch, they will probably become unhealthy. It may here be remarked that on first leaving the cow-house, the calf should be confined in a safe place in the yard or elsewhere for a day or two, until it becomes accustomed to the bright light of day, as on its first introduction it appears almost blind, and would be likely to run into danger.

A change of pasture now and then is desirable, but calves should not be put into low wet meadows, as it is generally in such situations that they get diseased with a husky cough.* As the autumn approaches the grass will be less nutritious, it will then be necessary to give them some food in their yard or shed, such as pulped roots mixed with cut straw chaff, every night. A little salt mixed with their chaff is a good thing, and is believed by some people to prevent hove".

When frost begins they should not be turned into their pasture till nine or ten o'clock, or till it disappears. Their racks, cribs, and mangers, or whatever they feed or drink from, should constantly be kept clean, and the herdsman should be urged to feed and water them regularly, and to keep them well supplied with dry bedding.

As winter approaches they would be best confined to the yard, where, if well sheltered and fed regularly with a proper quantity of pulped roots, turnips, or mangold, mixed with sweet straw chaff sprinkled with a little salt, they will thrive fast enough till the spring, when they can return to their pastures, or be provided with green food; they should be carefully treated as before recommended. The upland pastures are best for young stock.

* Called hove or hoove. See "Diseases of Cows".

Some people allow heifers to have calves when only two years old, but they seldom (if ever) make such good cows as those that are left free till they are three years of age.

Young stock brought up as here recommended will generally thrive fast, and be free from disease.