WEANING THE CALF.
I thought I had tried almost everything relating to the care of cows, but when I undertook to wean a five-weeks’-old calf, I found my education in that respect sadly neglected. I asked a farmer’s wife how I was to manage. “Oh,” she said, “just dip your fingers in the milk, and let the calf suck them a few times, and it will soon learn to put its nose in the pail and drink.” It sounded simple enough, so I took my pail and started for the barn, where that wretched animal slopped me all over with milk, bunted me round and round the pen, until I was black and blue, sucked the skin off my finger, and wouldn’t drink. After trying at intervals for two days, the calf was getting thin, and so was I. In despair, I left the pail of milk, giving that calf a few words of wholesome advice. When I went back two hours after, the calf was standing over the empty pail, with an expression on its face, that I translated into an inquiry, as to why I hadn’t left that pail there before. I have weaned several calves since then, but have never had any trouble. Leave them with the cow three or four days, then take a little milk and hold the calf’s nose in the pail; it must open its mouth or smother, and when once it tastes the milk, will soon learn to drink.[1] When it is a week old, commence feeding with oil-cake, skim-milk and molasses. Into an old two-pound peach can, I put one tablespoonful of oil-cake and one of molasses, fill up the can with boiling water, and set it on the stove until thoroughly cooked. That quantity will be its allowance for one day, mixed with skim-milk. The next week, give it that quantity at each meal, and the next week, twice that. The calf will then be four weeks old, and the butcher ought to give you a price for it that will pay for all trouble and the family milk bill while the cow was dry. It does not pay to raise calves where you only keep one cow. (Mr. Cochrane, the owner of the celebrated cow “Duchess of Airdrie,” told me the other morning that last year he sold a calf of her’s to an English gentleman for four thousand guineas (twenty thousand dollars). I think it would pay to have a wet nurse if one had a calf like that). A tablespoonful of lime-water put in the milk now and then will prevent the calf from “scouring,” a complaint very common among calves brought up by hand. I believe that winter rye makes a valuable soiling plant, but I have never tried it.
[1] It is better, as a rule, not to allow the calf to suck at all. Aptness in learning to drink is influenced by heredity. Calves from ancestors that have not been allowed to suck, learn to drink more readily than those which have been allowed to run with the dam.