FEEDING YOUNG CALVES

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 313, 19 November 1910, Page 6

FEEDING YOUNG CALVES

Young calves need whole milk for the first few days. Skim-milk is cheap feed for calves, but should be fed carefully in limited quantities, and only while it is warm and sweet. Skim-milk may form the principal diet of the calf for six months to a year. Factory skim-milk should always be pasteurised to avoid the spread of tuberculosis. The best skim-milk is that which is fresh from the separator and still warm. Experiments show that it is only one-fourth as expensive to raise a calf on skim milk as on whole milk; 21bs of grain with the proper amount of skim-milk equals in feeding value lib of butter-fat. Buttermilk, properly handled, may profitably be fed to calves. The grain for calves should be fed first while the calf is quite small, with a little bran to aid the calf in learning to eat. Highpriced concentrates are unnecessary, and give no better results than maizemeal, oats and bran, and crushed barley, when fed in proper combination. The roughage for calves should first be fed at two or three weeks old, when the calf begins to eat. Good, clean hay (lucerne hay for preference) may bo used. Maize silage is an excellent calf feed when fed in moderate amounts. Good pasture is an essential, after four to six months. The management of the calf during the first year has much to do with its later usefulness. Plenty of water and salt should be given in clean vessels. Sudden changes of diet should be avoided, and regularity in feeding be practised. Warm, dry quarters should always be provided in damp weather. Plenty of roughage should be given, and not too much grain, so as to develop a large capacity for handling food, as is desirable in dairy animals.

Very noticeable, indeed, is the deterioration which results from the use of an inferior bull in those cases where the farmer has succeeded in getting together a herd of fairly good, well bred cows.