SHUT OUT THE COLD.

Northern Advocate, 14 May 1887, Page 3

SHUT OUT THE COLD.

i.ne temperature of the living animal body cannot vary greatly, and therefore when the weather grows colder there is an increased demand for food to be consumed in keeping up the natural heat. A low temperature is an expensive condition as every fanner who has wintered his stock well knows. There are two general methods of overcoming the wearing or exhausting effects of severe cold weather ; giving the animals an abundance of rich and palatable, heat forming food, and securing them from exposure in warm and comfortable stables. A happy combination of these two methods is the one to be provided by every stock raiser who looks both to the comfort of his animals and their profitableness. If stables generally could be wanned with safety by stoves, there is no doudt that a saving in the amount of fodder would result. Much can be done in this direction by keeping the animals in well built stables, and tree from all chilling currents of frost-laden air. The writer has in mind a stable, where a long row of milch cows suffered almost to the point of freezing on many winter nights, because the stable was full of large cracks, and the doors only partly shut out the drifting snows. A few hours of patching the walls, flooring and doors, with very little expense for lumber, would have made its good effects evident within a single week at the dairy room. A cow is not at her best when she must shiver with the cold and the frost and snow of a severe winter night. Looked at in simply the pecuniary light, this method of keeping farm stock does not bring the best returns. There is no farmer who being able to own a herd of cattle or flock of sheep, can afford not to house them well. He may let them eat at will from the stack of the best hay that is mada, but if they have no more shelter than the stack affords, he may come to the conclusion, common to all bad agricultural practice, that farming does not pay. Lot this be a word in season tor all those who may profitby it. Stop the cracks in the stables and save pain for ypur animals and money for yourself. Take special care not to have the farm stock exposed to the chilling winter blasts; in short, shut out the cold. _- Danger is always present when any animal is fed upon whole roots, apples, or potatoes. The smaller ones and the fragments of the larger ones are the most dangerous. The root or potatoe becomes very slippery from the saliva and nucus of the mouth, and as the a.wimn.l holds up the head in the act of trying to. get the morsel between the teeth, it slips into the throat and may lodge there. This danger is wholly evaded by cutting this kind of food into slices ; either by a cutter or by a sharp edged shovel, which I find as easy and asrapid a way as need be for fifteen or twenty head. The shovel is then handy to measure out the food ; which I always dust over with meal and give a heaping Bhovelf ul to each cow, or hone and half as much to a yearling. The surplus apples, and potatoes, and turnips, and beets I fully believe are worth 25 cents a bushel: which as far as the apples are concerned, is twice as profitable as making cider for sale except as yiuegar, and far better then muddling ones head with it.* - " Why do the boys leave the form P " wafla a writer in an agricultural journal. Well, dear brother, there are several reasons. One is because the boy is not sixty-five years old. If he were he would be wiser. Improve upon former methods, but don't throw aside the certain ; don't get the speciality craze and rush into something you Know very little about. It is estimated that over 28,000 sheep were killed by dogs in Ohio last year.