EARLY MATURITY OF FARM STOCK.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 32, 31 July 1880, Page 4

EARLY MATURITY OF FARM STOCK.

By the common admission of all competent to form opinions on the matter (says an English writer), remunerative meat production cannot be insured at the present day without early maturity and rapid fattening. 3»ung pigs, fed from birth and sent to the pork shops at about six weeks ol<l»3ntty be made to pay, but the production of bacon can only be accomplished at a loss. Lambs taught to nibble oil cake as soon as they will eat anything, and kept steadily moving so that they fatten as they grow, may, at about ten months old, be brought to heavier weights of carcase than our fathers used to bring their sheep to after keeping them three or {our years. And cattle' feeding, to be rendered remunerative, must be conducted pricisely in the same way. The calf must never ue stinted of food, but have plenty of milk at first, and then milk and meal with a little oil cake. As he grows bigger and devours more of the natural food of the farm, whether it be hay and root pulp or green food, a portion of the milk may be taken off, or skim milk thickened with linseed meal, or linseed boiled to mucilage, may be substituted for the whole milk, but when this is done the allowance of oil cake should be increased. The calf should at all times be fed so as to go on steadily putting on flesh more, and more as it grows ; never being allowed to have a check at any time, but to enjoy one continuous progressive development

with greater and still greater allowances of oil cake or meal, the result of which will be the pioduction of two-year-old beef. Well-bred young steers and heifers, in short, may be ripened into tolerably good maturity at two years old, if ouly \hey are of the right strains of blood, for a great deal depends on this. Practical men of great experience are well aware what astonishing differences present themselves in the capabilities of animals to lay on flesh rapidly and arrive at maturity quickly. Of a number of stock picked tip indiscriminately at a fair or market the proportion of "ne'ei-do-well" ones would be large, while others would thrive to a wish. Here and there a few excellent judges of stock may ba found capable of picking out the good doers from the bad at a glance, ere their capabilities have been tried. But this is a rare gift, and ! can scarcely be termed a feat of skill to be acquired ; consequently the necessity of graziers who desire to produce two-yeai'-old beef on a large scale, rearing their own stock, manifests itself.