REARING CALVES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 143, 19 June 1913, Page 6

REARING CALVES.

AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.

The Royal Agricultural Society of England is conducting a calf-rearing experiment on the best way of rearing calves from birth. Last year twenty Shorthorn bull calves were purchased' in the' open market, when two or three days' old, and they all had whole milk only for the first three weeks, taking on the average one gallon per head daily. At the end of three weeks they were all weighed, and were divided up, according to their weights, into five lots of four calves each. The five lots were then put on their several different foods ias follows, i.e., cod-liver oil and separated milk; a purchased "calf meal"; gruel (linseed and oatmeal) yitfo separated milk; whole milk; and crushed oats and separated milk. The costs of the several foods were:— Whole milk 7d per gallon, separated milk 2d per gallon, cod-liver oil 5s 6d per gallon, "calf meal" 15s per cwt, oatmeal 17s per owt.,' linseed 24s per cwt., crushed oats (home-grown) 7s per cwt. ' . ' , According to Dr Voelclcer, who; is in charge of the experiment, the* interesting general result is apparent .that not only did the crushed oats and separated milk feeding give the highest gain at the least cost during the feeding of nine weeks with the special foods, but that subsequently, when the calves were turned out in the fields and all fed alike, tho gain of live weight continued to be higher with this feeding than with any or the other foods. This would lead to the valuable conclusion that the influence of the early feeding of calves has an. important bearing on their after development, and that a "good start" is very essential. The improvement effected by' the early feeding with dry crushed oats was thus maintained for a period of quite seven months after the special feeding had been, dropped. The next best result as regards increase of weight was obtained with the- whole milk calves, and it must be freely said that in February, 1913, they looked the best of all the lots, having more "bloom" on them than any of the others. In fact, it was then quite possible for anyone looking over the calves _when all together 'to pick out which were the "whole milk" ones. The ."crushed oats" lots similarly stood out above the remainder, and undoubtedly v the poorest1 of all were the "calf meal" lot. These relative appearances had practically been maintained throughout. It is intended to carry on the experiment until the bullocks are ready to be sent to the butcher. This experiment is an interesting one to dairy fanners in New Zealand, for the growing of a few acres of oats to provide the necessary feed for calves would be an inexpensive item, especially when the straw also comes in useful for winter feed.