FOALS NURSED BY A COW.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1219, 30 August 1911, Page 8

FOALS NURSED BY A COW.

AN UNCOMMON SIGHT.

A very uncommon sight may lie seen nt tho farm of llr. J. Walton, Ashbo;king, Ipswich, says an English stock journal. TheTe two foals are being reared by, cows, one because its dam, a Clydesdale, mare, absolutely refuted to 'take to it, n:id (ho other because its mother died and it ira.? on the verge of starvation. The mare would not nurse her foal last year, lint would rather have killed it it it had not I;i*n taken away, therefore' Mr. Walton's foreman patiently set to work to teach it to suck a R«l Toll cow which had recently calved. More, perseverance was needed than the average man would have given to tho task, but in the cad he won, and tho youngster learned how io bend its iiack to reach the teats of a somewhat lowgrown cow. The mare showed no sign of parental affection for the second foal, bora this spring, so it was forthwith put on to tlio cow which proved such a good foster-mother last, year, while tho mare herself, goes regularly to work. There appears to be very little difference between this foal and those sucking their dams as to growth and condition, therefore the question may be asked whether it would pay to put a foal to a cow so that its dam could b» worked; or. in other words, whether a mare or a cow is tlio most, economical nursing motlirr. One thing is made clear, which is that the tedious process of bringing foals w> by hand can be dispensed with if a gcodUmperrtl and freshly-calved cow is available at the time it is wanted, but a Polled 0r.3 is certainly preferable, as (he horns would be very likely to cause trouble.