Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry Part 5

(4) Ground peas and oats, also fed in equal proportions. The succotash mixture may be fed alone or in conjunction with other meal added to make the food still more in balance.

It is preferable to feed meal admixed with cut fodders. The mastication that follows will then be more thorough and the digestion more complete.

When ensilage is fed, admixture will result sufficiently if the meal is thrown over the ensilage where it has been put into the mangers.

In order to insure the animal obtaining full benefit of all its feed, it will be found highly profitable to include Pratts Cow Remedy with the daily ration. It acts as a digestive and at the same time insures a healthy and natural action of the bowels.

Bulls should be fed and managed with a view to secure good, large and robust physical development and the retention of begetting powers unimpaired to a good old age. The aim should be to avoid tying bulls in the stall continuously for any prolonged period, but to give them opportunity to take exercise in box stalls, paddocks, and pastures to the greatest extent that may be practicable.

_Jacksonville, Fla.

Have used Pratts Cow Remedy with good success as a general tonic and for increasing milk. Omitting it at intervals as a test showed a falling off of about a pint for each cow, which was always made up when the remedy was added.

T.C. JOHNSTON._

A ring should be inserted in the nose when not yet one year old. Rings most commonly used are two and one-half to three inches in diameter.

When inserting them the head of the animal should be drawn tightly up to a post or other firm objects, so that the muzzle points upward at a suitable angle. A hole is then made with a suitable implement through the cartilage between the nasal pa.s.sages, and forward rather than backward in the cartilage. The ring is then inserted, the two parts are brought together again, and they are held in place by a small screw.

When ringed, a strap or rope with a spring attached will suffice for a time when leading them, but later they should be led with a lead, which is a strong, tough circular piece of wood, four to five feet long, with a snap attached to one end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRATTS PRACTICAL POINTERS]

+ -----+ | ~SELL THE MILK BUT GROW THE CALVES~ | | | |Whole milk is too valuable to use as calf feed, even if calves--both | |veals and those kept for dairy purposes--are selling at such high | |prices. Sell the milk, get all the cash out of it, but grow the calves| |just the same. Merely feed the perfect milk subst.i.tute-- | | | | ~PRATTS CALF MEAL | | "BABY FOOD FOR BABY CALVES"~ | | | |When prepared and fed in accordance with the simple directions, Pratts| |Calf Meal will grow calves _equal to those grown on whole or skim-milk| |and at less cost_. | | | |This truly wonderful calf feed has practically the same chemical | |composition as the solids of whole milk. It is made of superior | |materials, carefully selected and especially adapted to calf feeding. | |These are milled separately and bolted to remove hulls and coa.r.s.e | |particles, which insures perfect digestion. Finally, the mixture is | |thoroughly steam-cooked, in a sense pre-digested. | | | |Calves fed Pratts way thrive and grow rapidly and are not subject to | |scours and other calf disorders. Just make a test. Feed some calves | |_your_ way and some _Pratts_ way. Let your eye and the scales tell the| |story. Learn how easy it is to grow the best of calves at less cost. | | | | "YOUR MONEY BACK IF YOU ARE NOT SATISFIED" | + -----+

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRATTS PRACTICAL POINTERS]

Avoid using in service bulls under one year. During the one-year form they should not be allowed to serve more than a score of cows; after they have reached the age of 24 to 30 months they may be used with much freedom in service until the vital forces begin to weaken with age. When properly managed, waning should not begin before the age of 7 or 8 years. It has been found that the bull's service can be made more sure by the use of Pratts Cow Remedy, because of its mild and safe tonic properties. Bulls should he able to serve from 75 to 300 cows a year without injury when the times of service spread over much of the year.

Calves reared to be made into meat at a later period are very frequently allowed to nurse from their dams. This should never be done in the dairy. Such a method of raising them is adverse to maximum milk giving, as the calves when young cannot take all the milk the cows are capable of giving; hence the stimulus is absent that would lead her to give more.

At no time in the life of a dairy cow should she be allowed to suckle her calf longer than the third day of its existence.

In certain parts of the country, especially where whole milk is sold for consumption in the cities, dairy-men frequently kill calves at birth because of lack of milk for feeding them. This practice is wrong and unnecessary. All strong calves should be grown, either for milking animals or veal. And this can now be done, easily and cheaply, by feeding Pratts Calf Meal, the perfect milk subst.i.tute, the guaranteed "baby food for baby calves." When this scientific food is used, calves of really superior quality, big, st.u.r.dy, vigorous, are grown practically without milk.

Pratts Calf Meal must not be confused with coa.r.s.e mixtures of mill by-products sometimes sold as "calf meal" or "calf food." Pratts is as carefully made as the baby foods which are so widely used for children.

It appeals to the calf's appet.i.te, is easily and quickly digested, produces rapid growth and even development. It does not cause scours and other digestive troubles. And it is easy to prepare and feed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ~SHORT HORN COW~]

In chemical composition, Pratts Calf Meal is practically identical with the solids of whole milk. It is made exclusively of materials especially suited to calf feeding and these are always of the highest quality obtainable. This is one secret of the great success of this truly remarkable feed.

The various materials are ground very fine, milled separately, and are then bolted to remove any coa.r.s.e particles. They are then combined in exact proportions and thoroughly mixed.

Finally, the mixture is steam-cooked, which makes the feed easy to digest and a.s.similate. This expensive, but most necessary process, prevents indigestion and bowel troubles which accompany the use of unbolted, uncooked meals.

Where milk is available for calf feeding the following plan may be used:

The young calf should take milk from its dam for, say, three days.

During that period the milk is only fit for feeding purposes. It is very important that the calf shall be started right, and in no way can this be done so well as by Nature's method, that is, by allowing it to take milk from the dam at will. At the end of that time it should be taught to drink. This can usually be accomplished without difficulty by allowing the calf to become hungry before its first lesson in drinking.

It should be given all whole milk, for say, two weeks. This given in three feeds per day, and not more in quant.i.ty, as a rule, than two quarts at a feed.

The change from whole to skim-milk should be made gradually. A small amount of skim-milk should be added to the whole milk the first day, and a corresponding amount of whole milk withheld. The amount of skim-milk increased from day to day, and the whole milk fed decreased correspondingly. The time covered in making the change from all whole to all skim-milk should be from one to two weeks. Any skim-milk that is sweet will answer, but it should not be fed to young calves at a lower temperature than about 98 degrees in winter. Milk obtained by cream separators, soon after drawn from the cow, is particularly suitable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ~HOLSTEIN COW~]

As soon as the change from whole to skim-milk is begun, some subst.i.tute should be added to replace the fat withheld by reducing the amount of whole milk fed. Ground flax or oil-meal is the best. It is generally fed in the latter form. In some instances the oil-meal is put directly into the milk beginning with a heaping teaspoonful and gradually increasing the quant.i.ty. A too lax condition of the digestion would indicate that an excessive amount was being fed. Later the meal may be more conveniently fed when mixed with other meal.

_Riverdale, Md.

Very much pleased with results of Pratts Animal Regulator during the present period of my cows breeding. An extraordinary strong calf and the mother in fine condition.

WM. C. GRAY._

As soon as the calves will eat meal it should be given to them. No meal is more suitable at the first than ground oats and wheat bran. A little later whole oats will answer quite well. To calves grown for dairy uses they may form the sole grain food. If the calves are to be grown for beef, some more fattening food, as ground corn, or ground barley, should be added to the meal. For such calves, equal parts of bran, oats whole or ground, and ground corn, barley, rye, or speltz are excellent. Until three months old they may be allowed to take all the grain that they will eat. Later it may be necessary to restrict the quant.i.ty fed. Calves for the dairy must be kept in a good growing condition, but without an excess of fat. The meal should be kept in a box at all times accessible to the calves and should be frequently renewed. Grain feeding may cease when the calves are put upon pasture.

As soon as the calves will eat fodder it should be given to them. Fodder gives the necessary distention to the digestive organs, which makes the animals capable of taking a sufficient quant.i.ty of food to result in high production. Alfalfa, clover-hay, and pea and oat hay are excellent, provided they are of fine growth and cut before they are too advanced in growth. If field roots can be added to the fodder the result in development and good digestion will be excellent. Any kind of field roots are good, but mangels, sugar beets, and rutabagas are the most suitable because of their good keeping qualities. They should be fed sliced, preferably with a root slicer, and the calves may be given all that they will eat without harm resulting.

The duration of the milk period more commonly covers three to four months with calves that are hand fed, but it may be extended indefinitely providing skim-milk may be spared for such a use. Such feeding is costly. Calves reared on their dams are seldom allowed milk for more than six or seven months, save when they are reared for show purposes.

(1) The amount should be determined by the observed capacity of the calf to take milk and by the relative cost of the skim-milk and the adjuncts fed along with it.

(2) During the first weeks until it begins to eat other food freely, it should be given all the milk that it will take without disturbing the digestion.

(3) Usually it would be safe to begin with six pounds of milk per day, giving eight pounds at the end of the first week, and to add one pound each week subsequently until the age of 10 to 12 weeks. Any excess of milk given at one time usually disturbs the digestion and is followed by too lax a condition of the bowels.

When milk has been the chief food, and the weaning is sudden, usually growth will be more or less arrested. When sustained largely on other foods, the change may be made without any check to the growth, even in the case of calves that suck their dams. When hand raised, the quant.i.ty of milk is gradually reduced until none is given. In the case of sucking calves they should be allowed to take milk once a day for a time before being shut entirely away from the dams. The supplementary food should be strengthened as the milk is withheld.

Calves should have constant access to good water, even during the milk period, and also to salt.

Where many are fed simultaneously, the milk should be given in pails kept scrupulously clean. The pails should be set in a manger, but not until the calves have been secured by the neck in suitable stanchions.

As soon as they have taken the milk, a little meal should be thrown into each pail. Eating the dry meal takes away the desire to suck one another.

Calves of the dairy, dual purpose, and beef breeds may be reared by hand along the same lines, but with the following points of difference:

(1) The dual types want to carry more flesh than the dairy types, and the beef types more than either.

(2) To secure this end, more and richer milk must be given to calves of the beef type, especially during the first weeks of growth. Forcing calves of the beef type would be against the highest development attainable. Until the milking period is reached, the food and general treatment for the three cla.s.ses is the same. They should be in fair flesh until they begin to furnish milk.