MAKING GOOD USE OF BEASTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 232, 1 October 1930, Page 21

MAKING GOOD USE OF BEASTINGS.

The first milk from the cow after calving is called boastings, and is not made the best use of on many farms. It is really the very essence of milk, and contains more nutriment than any other taken from the cow, It is especially provided for the calf's first meals, for> being of a slightly purgative nature, it clears off all abnormal or rather offensive lodgments from the stomach and bowels, and at the same time brings the internal orjyans into proper action; so that it ahSld be the herdsman's first object to let the newly-born calf to take a free sup from the udder. It is, however, the general practice to wean the calves from their mothers immediately after parturition and deprive them of the beastings with which they should be served. Though ordinary new milk may, and likely will, contain a good percentage of butterfat or cream, it will not contain coloetrums (beastings); hence iii& that numbers of calves are lost m the early days of their existence from ecowr or some other disorder brought about by injudicious feeding. The duration of the. beastings state of the milk depends on whether the animal be a heifer or a more aged cow, and ot a rich milking breed or otherwise. Cows that have had a number of calves, and never were famed for the richness of their imilk, only give about one or two meals; while heifers of such high-class milking breeds as Channel Islanders continue to give the rich meals for two or S days. Naturally, the food and condition of the cow have something to do with the duration of this state of the milk The cow highly fed on good milkOToducing food will give beastings for a xneal or two longer than'if she were kept on poor food; just the same as the kije calving, when fat, have a tendency to eive them for several meals longer than poor, lean .cows.—"Live Stock Journal." ,