REARING DAIRY CALVES.

Waipa Post, Volume IV, Issue 189, 18 February 1913, Page 4

REARING DAIRY CALVES.

IS HEAVY FEEDING INJURIOUS.

Although there is room for the best judgment as to what is consistent with health,all experience in the rearing of animals as well as human beings goes to show that growth, and assimilative power are dependent upon judicious crowding of food in the early period of life, says Dr H. B. Faiill, of Chicago, writing in Farm and Dairy on the question of whether heavy feeding injures dairy calves. Let us not, he savs, be led astray by popular dictum founded upon sound observation that it is well to keep calves hungry. Whatever truth there is in that observation is but a practical method and not a principle. It is simply a way of satisfying ourselves that the calf is not over-fed and does not at all mean that the purpose for which we are working would not have been better secured if the hungry calf had been fed more. It must consequently be regarded as a measure of safety and not as a principle of action. With other domestic animals whose rearing is attempted under different physical conditions there is no suggestion that it is desirable to keep them hungry. In draught colts, for example, whose value is, related to size, all experience goes to show that early feeding is indispensable. Less trouble occurs with them, however, because of the freedom ol their lives as compared with the hothouse methods employed with dairy calves.

DOES IT TEND TO BEST TYPE ?

This question, however, presents itself and is prominent in the minds of many breeders. Does the heavy feeding and development of dairy calves have a tendency to transform them from the dairy type into the beef type ? Dr Favill’s is that no such conflict need occur. He adds that he believes that where full feeding of dairy stock has had bad results, if at all, it is in incorrect feeding rather than in excessive feeding. The growth of a calf is a matter of skeleton and not a matter of flesh. All people agree that the dairy cow, and particularly the Holetein-Friesian cow, should be brought to its full size. All breeders know that it is only to be brought to its full size by forcing it during its first two years. The simple question is,

need anyone fear to do it lest he impair the milk function ?

DAIRY QUALITY HEREDITARY. In conclusion, Dr Flavell saysI am strongly of the,opinion that the heaviest feeding consistent with, health of proper skeleton forming foods cannot interfere with the dairy type. I believe that the dairy function is not an accident; that it is an endowment derived from the sum of the ancestor's and that whatever possibilities there are in a given animal are to be fostered and augmented by strong feeding in youth than the reverse. So far as science throws any light upon it at all it distinctly favours that view of the matter. In our effort to create a strong transforming machine for turning food into milk we not only must begin this early, but we need not fear that in the process we shall destroy the milk type by creating another type. If there is no such fear, then the factor of size is at the same time secure, and if, moreover, it is true that assimilative power, skeleton and milk function are all dependent upon essentially the same kind of food, viz., high protein food, tffe problem seems to take a definite form.

Right here, let me call attention to something which is not always realised. Bones are not primarily lime of phosphate. They are primarily tissue, more like gristle, a high protein substance, and must have abundance of protein material to form them. Lime and other salts are put into them ultimately for the purpose of stiffening, but the growth of the skeleton is a proteid growth. This we are liable to forget.