QUICK WORK WITH DAIRY COWS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 38, 21 August 1880, Page 4

QUICK WORK WITH DAIRY COWS.

How to improve and make the most of milch cows is a subject which has been much overhauled of late, and many old maxims and traditions of the fathers are being weighed and found wanting. For instance, the theory that a cow is worth as much as a milker at ten, twelve, or even at fifteen years of age, is one thai will not stand the test. In the first place, a cow will with proper attention attain her maturity at her third year. Her strength, and powers of digesting, are then at their height, and ever after must be a decreasing series. Each year will then deduct something from her value as food. The calves designed for mothers must be kept growing. The heifers after being bred must have good attention, and be fed almost as well as if being fattened for market. Do not be afraid of getting them too fat. They must be sheltered and made comfortable in every way, and should be handled and made thoroughly gentle. The result will be your two-year-old heifer will at calving time be developed into a cow almost as large as she will ever be. Now, after she is well over calving, she must be pushed with the best of food. No matter how good the pasture, Bhe must have other food all the summer, for, beside the food consumed to produce milk, she is still growing, and being young, and her digestive powers being vigorous, if properly taken care of she will produce nearly or quite as much milk as your older cows. After her fifth calf, or when she is six or seven years old, she should be fattened and sold for beef, and at that age she will be worth nearly as much for food as at any time in her life. I have a heifer that calved on May Ist last, being then two years old, which averaged all the summer nearly five gallons of milk per day, and although bred again in July, is still giving over a gallon per day. This is not often exceeded by the best of fully matured cows. The fact is, not enough allowance has been made for the increased vigor and capacity for digesting food in young animals, and thus often nearly a year has been lost in consequence of neglect to supply sufficient care and food. — New York Herald.