For the first ten to twelve days the calf should have about five quarts of milk a day, divided into three feedings. This should be warmed to blood heat, ninety-five to a hundred degrees Fahr. At two weeks you can begin to substitute skim-milk. A half-pint a day at first is about right. Watch the effect on the calf. Increase the quantity gradually, until at a month or six weeks old the calf is getting seven to eight quarts per day of skim-milk, always warm and perfectly sweet.
The worst disease of calf-hood is scours, and this disease is caused by feeding cold, unclean, or sour milk. I'd be ashamed to have a calf of mine sick with the scours! To cure it, add lime-water to the milk or mix a teaspoonful of dried blood in a small amount of water, then stir into the milk. Or an ounce of wheat bran or kaffir corn meal stirred into the milk will be helpful. Some recommend oat or corn meal fed dry, or a little linseed meal mixed in a little water and then stirred into the milk.
If your calves are all heifers to be added to the dairy herd, you do not want them to lay on great amounts of fat, but to grow strong and be able to digest great amounts of hay. If they are to be beef, they need more fat. Grain is fattening, especially corn. Begin to feed hay as soon as the calf will take it. Clean, dry clover is best, but any good hay will help prepare their stomachs for the work which is expected of them later. Milk and hay are best for growing calves. Grain, oil-meal, and pasture furnish variety.
Have you seen a wild-eyed cow being literally dragged behind a wagon, scared past endurance and behaving like a savage creature? There is not the slightest excuse for that sort of thing. What fun it is to slip a halter on a calf to-day and let him get accustomed to it; to-morrow lead him about a little with coaxing. In a few days he will lead like an old horse. He will learn to expect only kindness from his feeder and trainer. It would be well to accustom the calves to the presence of your dog, too. There are men who think a frightened animal is a humourous sight. But such a man is "no gentleman" and I certainly would never think of trusting him to drive my horses, or milk my cows, or even feed my pigs.
Our calves were kept in an old orchard, convenient to the house, with good pasture, plenty of sun and shade, and a suitable fence. A shed for wet weather is essential, for a clean, dry bed must be provided. Calves have no way of cleaning themselves, therefore they must not be allowed to get dirty.
Milk should be fed until the calves are four months old, and may be continued longer. After the first few weeks, when they have begun to take some hay and grass, the milk may be given in two feedings. Water should be given freely especially in hot weather. If your pasture has a clear running brook, your calves are in luck and so are you, for carrying water for a bunch of calves is no joke. A garden hose or a series of v-shaped troughs from pump to pen saves a lot of time and backache.
A calf whose mother has a record for milk rich in butter fat and a sire of good family has in it the possibilities of a prize-winner. Whether she will earn seventy-seven cents a year over and above her keep, like those one thousand and twenty poor cows that Illinois boys and girls know about, or thirty dollars a year, like the twenty-five good cows, depends very much on the care she gets. No amount of care given to a cow will make up for neglect to the calf. There's a big responsibility on the boys and girls of the farms, for calf feeding is their job.
THE STORY OF TWO BOYS AND A COW
The suggestion that the suburban home might be a money-making investment would strike the average suburbanite as ridiculous. But a few moments of careful calculation may put preconceived notions to flight and show how considerable money may be made—or saved, which is quite as important.
Some years ago a family, which included two boys of eleven and thirteen years, took a house in the outskirts of a good-sized town, about thirty minutes' ride from the city. The father was a buyer for an importing house, and absent from home for several months of each year. His salary was large, as such salaries go, but there were seven children to be raised and educated, several of them with marked abilities that needed the very best possible instruction to bring them to their highest development.