TEACHING THE CALF TO DRINK.
It is a very easy matter to teach a calf to drink milk, when one has seen the thing done. Next morning this calf was impatient for her mess of warm milk, so, after milking her dam, I took a shallow pan, and putting two quarts of milk into it proceeded to give the first lesson in a calf’s life, of doing without a mother. The process is very simple; you merely wet the first and second fingers of the left hand with milk, and place them in the calf’s mouth, to give her a taste of what is in store. Repeat this a few times, then gradually draw the pan near her mouth with the right hand, using your left as above. When the calf permits your two fingers to enter her mouth, raise the pan so that your left hand will be immersed, and the calf, by suction, will draw the milk up between the fingers. At mid-day, another mess of milk, and a second lesson was given; at evening a third. Next morning the process was repeated, but in this instance she did not need the fingers to guide her to what was good for her; she readily accepted the situation, and stuck her pretty nose into the warm milk, which rapidly disappeared to where it would do the most good. But with milk worth ten cents per quart, and cream seven times as much, it did not “pay” to use six quarts daily of rich Jersey milk in this way, so, after a fortnight’s supply of the raw material, the feed was gradually changed to sweet skim-milk for two weeks, and then substituting hay-tea, the milk ration was cut down to two quarts daily. Beginning with a tablespoonful of cotton-seed meal, thoroughly mixed with the feed, the quantity was increased in ten days to one pint daily. At one month old, she was gradually taught to eat bran by stirring it into her food.
The preparation of hay-tea is very simple. Nice hay is run through a cutter, and taking an ordinary two-gallon pailful, boiling water is poured upon it; it is then covered and allowed to steep for twelve hours. This makes a most excellent food, and calves thrive upon it. The most stylish and vigorous calf I ever saw, was raised upon hay-tea, with bran and cotton-seed meal as here described. I enter thus fully into the best manner of raising a calf without its mother, for the especial benefit of my southern readers, where the thriftless habit of allowing the calf to suck its dam, oftentimes until a year old, so generally prevails. In this instance the little heifer got along nicely until two months old, when an aggravated attack of scours set in, but by timely doses of laudanum in a mess of warm gruel, poured down her throat twice a day, for three days, a cure was effected. In ordinary cases of scours, a change to dry food will correct it, but it is well to watch and not to permit the disease to become seated. A few years ago, a very valuable young Jersey heifer, received from the vicinity of Philadelphia, was taken in this way, while undergoing the usual course of acclimation incident to northern cattle brought south, and the simpler treatment proving of no effect, I gave injections twice a day of rice-water and laudanum, besides drenching her with corn-gruel and laudanum. This was kept up for ten days; we carried her safely through, and her present value amply compensates for the time and trouble expended.