Maintaining the Cow in Profit.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 205, 28 May 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

Maintaining the Cow in Profit.

A writer in the Farmer's Friend and Planter's Guide, remarks on this subject, that with a good selection made thore will necessarily follow tho question, How to maintain her in good condition for profit ? It must be apparent to every thinking person that good qualities, even in the highest perfection, will not insure an abundant and rich supply of milk unless proper care is taken to furnish the cow with the kind of food best calculated for the required purpose. Tho first requisite is, that tho animal should have abundance of food, so as to be able to consume all that she requires in as short a time as possiblo, as then she will lie down and have the more time to secrete her milk, and that milk acquire richness. In short, s>ho must not have to work too hard for her living. The pasture should be often changed, and if not in pasture the food should be succulent, otherwise fat instead of milk will be produced ; but cows fed with food of too watery a nature, which is the case with roots early in the season, requiro an addition of more solid food, such as meal or good clover chaff, otherwise the milk, although consideiable in quantity, will be poor and wheyey, yielding no cream. Such roots should be carefully selected as have no symptoms of decay, and should be mild in flavour, or the butter v, ill be tainted. In very cold weather, and as a change of food, ti!>e oil cake and ground oat*, steamed or boiled. The best roots are carrot", yellow turnips and man gold- v\ urzol, succeeding each other. The cow and the horse can -well pasture together, bat no other animal should ba allowed in the same field, pigs and poultry spoiling and tainting the feed. The paslure must be kept clean from weeds and all refuse matter. It must be supplied v, ith an abundance of puie water and free from all standing water. Cows should be taken in about s»un?et, or before they are preparing to rest for the night, and should not be hurried to or from pasture, especially when full of milk. Experiments have proved it better cows should not remain out all night, after August, at least, but be stabled n an open, airy shed.