STOCK AND STALKS
_A Book for the Dairy Farmer_
BY
J. R. ROBERTS
President Roberts Sanitary Dairy
Lincoln and Sioux City
Henry Westfall, Sales Agent, 126 So. 11th Street
Midwest Bldg., Lincoln, Nebraska
(All Rights Reserved)
Copyright, 1921
BY
J. R. ROBERTS
STOCK AND STALKS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTENSIVE VERSUS BY-PRODUCT DAIRYING 1
CHAPTER II
THE DAIRY TYPE 17
CAPACITY
TENDENCIES
PHYSICAL DEFECTS
DISEASES
CHAPTER III
THE PURE BRED SIRE 23
CHAPTER IV
WHAT TO FEED 26
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
BALANCED RATIONS
PASTURES
HAY
CORN FODDER
SILAGE WITHOUT CORN
SILAGE
GRAIN FEED
PREPARED FEEDS
CHAPTER V
HOW TO FEED 44
BALANCED RATIONS
WATER
CALF AND HEIFER FEEDING
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
RATIONS FOR THE DAIRY COW
CHAPTER VI
VARIATIONS IN MILK TESTS 56
CHAPTER VII
SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSTRUCTING A BARN 61
CHAPTER VIII
MILKING 63
CHAPTER IX
MILK PRODUCTS 66
BUTTER
CHEESE
COTTAGE CHEESE
CREAM
SKIM MILK
WHEY
CHAPTER X
MARKET MILK 74
WEIGHT OF MILK
LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
CLEANLINESS
SANITATION
COOLING MILK
CHAPTER XI
EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR DAIRY
FARM 83
CHAPTER XII
DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW 92
INTRODUCTION
In writing this booklet I hope to put into it information valuable to
the average farmer who keeps cows. I make no claim for this little
book as an addition to dairy science. It is rather a subtraction.
I mean that I have been careful to include only the most essential
information. Where a great mass of scientific data is gathered, it
takes discrimination to distinguish between matters of great and
less importance. To do this discriminating and to point out the most
essential things, as I see them, is the purpose of this undertaking.
Those who wish more detailed information can easily find it prepared
by those who have studied this matter in detail. I have not. In my
experience in the dairy business I have tried to use to the best and
most practical advantage the scientific knowledge that I could acquire
from others. My experience has all been an effort to apply science to
business. It has been a business experience, not one of research and
investigation. There is much that I have found to be of no particular
use to me, but there are many things that I have found to be of great
importance.
Science digs out facts, figures, data, knowledge, or whatever it may be
called. To take facts of science and make use of them in business is
one thing which Webster’s dictionary calls an art. This booklet, then,
may not be classed as science for the writer is not so very scientific;
it is not in itself a work of art for the writer is not strong on
artistic ability; but is written on the art of keeping cows and paying
the feed bills.
Stock and Stalks
CHAPTER I
INTENSIVE VERSUS BY-PRODUCT DAIRYING
Agriculture as a science is comparatively new. It is not like civil
engineering, for instance, which is taught about alike in all places,
and much of it the same as was taught a generation ago. Since I can
remember most of what is now known about dairy science has been
discovered. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the various
ideas and doctrines come out they have both adherents and opponents.
It takes time to clarify a situation and to prove what is the right
conclusion. Some blame our agricultural colleges for not knowing more
and knowing it sooner, and for spreading what we now know to have been
in some cases misinformation. But the course taken was really the only
one possible. Experiment stations have to try out a lot of theories
in order to find which are wrong and which are right. At present
there are many things still unknown and much difference of opinion.
If the discussion which follows seems to differ in some respects with
recognized authorities, I still think that I may be right; and if
wrong, I claim as good a right as any one else to make mistakes.
Here are some things to think about. At one time there were more real
dairy cattle in Lancaster county than there are at present. There were
fairly large herds of grade Holsteins producing milk where now there
are scarcely any cattle at all. Intensive dairying at one time had
a fine start in Lancaster county, but now there is not a herd large
enough to be called a dairy, except those owned by purebred breeders.
The city milk supply comes from a large number of farmers who produce
milk as a side issue. The methods of feeding and caring for cattle
on these farms is in the main contrary to the instructions given by
the dairy department at the State Farm. The men who made dairying a
business here were learning and following agricultural college methods.
They had good grade dairy cattle and produced fully twice as much per
cow as do the farmers now in the business. They all quit because it did
not pay.
It so happens that I was one of the men thus engaged. I had a fine
herd of fifty high-grade Holsteins that were producing as much milk as
is now being produced by thirty of our average dairy farmers. My herd
was sold after losing money for two years. We were in a cow-testing
association at the time and the fine records made by these cows helped
to sell them at a public sale. Right in sight of the agricultural
college all that had been accomplished seemed to fade away, and the old
red cow, which dairy science has tried for a generation to kill, came
back to the very skirts of the city. Just now if every dairy cow in
Nebraska would be slaughtered, their milk would hardly be missed but if
the old red cow would go on a strike, not a wheel in any creamery of
the state would be turning next week.
Why this remarkable turn of events? Well, there are two theories.
One of these lets the agricultural college and all of us out without
disgrace and is something of a slam on the farmer. The other gives the
farmer credit for having more sense than we had. Certain it is that the
farmer milking his beef cow produced milk for less than we Holstein
men could do it. The first theory is that the farmer did not know
his costs and therefore kept right on while the deficiency came out
of his hide. The second is that the farmer had us beat on the cost of
production. Is one or the other of these theories correct? It must be.
It would be like taking the hot end of a poker for me to argue that the
farmer is a fool and to have one of his number remark that, even though
he was, I went out of business against his competition. Some one else
will have to argue that side. I have a different explanation.
In my judgment the difference came about in the general rise in price
of labor, grain, and alfalfa. The milk that we produced was like a
garment cut out of new cloth--it all cost real money. The farmer’s
milk was largely produced from corn stalks, wheat pasture, stubble
fields, and draws pastured--material that must either be turned into
milk or wasted. It had scarcely any market value. Our methods and our
cattle were superior to his in many ways, but not enough to make up the
difference in the cost of feed. The common method on the farm is to
pasture corn stalks during the winter. It is a very wasteful method of
feeding but it requires no labor. The cows gather the corn that was
missed in the field and eat the leaves and husks. Few cows may be kept
on a farm where such methods are in use, but figuring the stalk of no
value, such methods produce the cheapest butter fat in the world. The
farmer had us beat on the cost of production. He did not feed grain and
forget to figure its value. He fed the grain that the huskers left in
the field. It had no value except as it came to the milk pail.
[Illustration: When the Dairy Cow Needs a Friend]
At one time I worked on a ranch in western Colorado where a large
number of range cattle were wintered. Alfalfa in that community was
selling for three dollars a ton, but we fed it to the weaker cattle
only. The strong ones could live on sage brush which cost nothing.
Sage brush was not a better feed. It was not nearly so good, but the
advantages offset the disadvantages. So it was with us. The advantages
of the two systems were weighed and ours found wanting.
The average farmer’s cow is a “scrub.” She usually goes dry for three
or four months of the year and, even when fresh, gives about half
what a developed dairy animal should give. Why do farmers persist in
milking “scrubs,” then? Have we not all told them better? I’ll say so!
Holsteins and Jerseys are not so rare that farmers do not know what
they are. Most farmers have owned a few but have gone back to the old
red stand-by. Why? Are we wrong again?
In Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and all over the east the red
cow is disappearing. People there do a great deal more of dairying
than we do. Who knows the business better, they who do dairying as a
business or we who do not? But arguments are of no use when they go
against known facts. The color of the cow is the result of a condition.
The red cow has been better suited to a farmer’s conditions and
requirements. Dairy cattle can not rough it like beef or dual-purpose
cattle. Where the custom is to stable feed and give good care to
cattle, dairy breeds naturally take the lead. Where the dairy business
is a side issue, and besides giving milk a cow is expected to face cold
winds and to withstand periods of semi-starvation, the dairy type is
not in it.
[Illustration: The strong, lean, well-developed dairy cows that have
never been weakened by starvation or cold.]
To understand the cattle business we must understand the fundamental
principles upon which the various kinds of cattle are built. Hereford
cattle, for instance, are a pure beef type. The beef animal is trained
and perfected in the tendency to save everything to itself and to
load up with fat and muscle. Some Hereford cows can hardly raise
their calves because of the tendency of the mother to save all her
nourishment for her own strength and protection. The cow boys on
the range rarely think of milking a cow that has lost her calf. The
typical beef animals give so little milk that they can go dry at any
time even on good grass with little or no injury to themselves. Some
dairy cows would die even though sucked by a big husky calf if they
were not milked, because they give so much more than the calf could
take. The dairy cow is bred and trained for generations to digest all
she can and to give it all away, keeping nothing with which to protect
herself against hard times. She builds no big muscles with which to
climb mountains, or wade through mud and snow drifts. The beef animal
if treated like a dairy cow simply gets fat and is finally turned to
the butcher. The dairy cow treated like a beef cow is a tragedy to
behold. I have seen both Holstein and Jersey steers out on the range
where Hereford cattle stay fat and strong and I have heard the cow
boys cuss about letting them live, for they were more of a ghost than
a reality. Cussed they were by men and God-forsaken, so it would seem.
Since even the steers can not protect themselves to live where the
Herefords will thrive, what can we ever expect of a producing cow? When
she has given all away then goes up against the period of short pasture
or semi-starvation, she begins immediately to readjust to meet the new
conditions. But the work of generations can not be undone in a life
time and she fails to meet the emergency and loses the vitality she
naturally possesses.
The red farmer’s cow is often called the dual-purpose animal. She is
about half way between the beef and the dairy. She protects herself
well but not to the limit as does the Hereford. She produces milk well
but not nearly so well as do the highly-bred and highly-developed
strictly dairy types. Not one of these three types of cows will do to
substitute for any other. Each has a place to fill and each is the best
animal in her place. There is nothing more foolish than to substitute
the dairy breeds for common cattle before we substitute the dairy man
for the farmer or else convert the farmer to the dairyman’s methods
in feeding. The corn stalks and waste feed make the cheapest milk and
the red cow is the most economical means of converting such feeds into
milk, provided we want only a small production with the least possible
effort. It takes more labor to prepare feed for animals and feed it to
them than it does to let the animals range around over the field and do
the best they can. If farm dairying is to be carried on in the future
just as it has been in the past, the red cow is the farmer’s best
friend and he is not a fool for recognizing her as such.
This is not a pet theory of mine. It is a conclusion that I have had to
swallow against my will. The situation has nothing of promise for the
future. If we become a dairy state, we will have to put more labor and
effort into milk production and do more like they do in other states.
The stalks left standing in the field, feeding but a few thick-skinned
cattle make the cheapest milk, only in case we figure the by-product
feeds as of no value. We could produce a great deal more cattle for
beef and for dairy purposes if we utilized what we now waste. If all
the corn in our state was shocked this year, think how much good feed
would remain after the grain is husked out. Think how many cattle might
be wintered. The stalks from one acre of average corn if properly
conserved yield nearly enough rough feed for one cow during the entire
winter. Fifty acres yield fully enough for forty head of cattle. Of
course we should use alfalfa for part of the ration but alfalfa is our
cheapest feed that is not a by-product. Grain will be required for
cattle that milk, but raising calves and keeping dry stock is as much
a part of milk production as anything else. All such cattle can be
well-nourished and developed without grain. It will not pay to refine
them to such an extent that they can not live on rough feed.
But conditions are changing again. Labor, grain, and alfalfa are all
coming down and land is high in price. We will not long be taking only
what we can get the easiest. The time is at hand when we are going
to imitate the packer who saves all but the squeal. The conditions
existing in the eastern states will be found here. I do not know how
soon but they are coming. It will be a long time before the specialized
producer can compete with the by-product feeder, but the latter is
going to save more of what he has and use it to better advantage as
soon as he can get labor. Dairy products are going to be in great
enough demand to pay the extra labor costs. I do not look for all
of the system to be reversed. The farmer’s idea of feeding cattle
what could be used for nothing else has been and will still be his
salvation. Those of us who produced nothing but milk were wrong, from
the standpoint of economy, in my opinion. What I look for now is a
combination between the two systems. Cows will be taken care of as
well as we cared for our high producers, there will be a change in the
methods of caring for feed, but a large part of the feed will be the
by-products of other farming operations. What is the use of feeding all
green-backs when we can make use of feed that costs nothing? We could
produce more milk by using specialized methods altogether but we can
make enough without, and it will be cheaper.
But the standard methods, that always have been and still are taught,
are altogether intensive. Every one talks of high records. There is not
enough talk of low-cost records.
A few years ago there was published in the Nebraska Farmer the
cow-testing association records of herds in Lancaster county. Some of
these herds yielded a large production and others yielded much less.
But the herds that produced less yielded at a higher rate of profit.
The difference was in the amount of grain and expensive foods consumed
in proportion to the production. During the last few years those who
have fed grain and alfalfa as we used to feed, have found it difficult
to meet expenses. We used to be taught that, since a cow required so
much to maintain her body whether she produced milk or not and only
the amount she consumed above that amount could be available for milk
production, it was well to feed as much grain as possible without
injuring the cow or reducing her flow. But the price of feed must
be reckoned, as all admit now. And if grain is too high the larger
proportion of our milk must come from the cheaper feeds. At present
the grain market looks very bad and intensive dairying would be more
profitable now than it has been for a long time.
But the combination, which I think is ideal, will be the best
proposition all of the time. In all further discussions in this booklet
I refer to dairy breeds exclusively for I believe that the tide is
turning and if the red cow and the old methods are still to take the
lead, it is a waste of time to study dairying. If farmers wish to
increase their milk production and find their way clear to devote more
time to their cattle, this discussion may be of some assistance.
Dairy cows have certain definite requirements. One of the most
important of these is that they go through no periods in which they do
not have all they want to eat of at least good grass or good hay or
roughage. If the grass begins to get a little short in the summer, we
must not neglect to feed. Another important requirement of the dairy
cow is that she be not exposed to hardships such as cold winds and
rains. Starvation and storms, these two things above all--we must guard
the dairy cow against.
I will describe how I think dairying should be conducted for the most
profit on the farm so that the by-products may be utilized to the
fullest extent practicable and at the same time the dairy type cattle
may be kept producing to good advantage. I am not inventing this
system, for I am describing the common practice of the people in the
dairy states. In Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota cattle are kept
largely on by-products. In the cheap feed lies the profits.
Elsewhere I have described my own methods of handling pasture, the idea
of which came from Europe. But as to winter feeding, the whole eastern
part of the United States sets a good example. I would want one or two
silos, small in diameter but tall. I would want one acre of alfalfa and
one acre of pasture for every cow that I expected to keep. If we have
a large number of young stock, the pasture would need to be increased.
I would fill these silos with corn, grain and all, and use the silage
to feed only the cows giving milk. I would use a Smalley feed cutter
with snapping attachments and use cut-up dry fodder containing no grain
as the principal feed for the dry cows and all young stock on the
place. The farmer usually milks only one-half as many cows as he has
cattle all together. By using “Flink’s Perfect Silo Seal” to protect
the silage it may be fed all summer whenever needed without waste.
What stalks remain to be pastured may be pastured by the milk cows
and so may wheat be pastured during good weather. I would depend upon
by-product feed for dry cattle and for part of the milk cow’s ration.
The amount of grain that is in corn silage is never too much for any
cow that is giving milk, but silage, corn and all, is too expensive for
cattle that are not milking.
By such methods the eastern farmer easily keeps at least twice the
number of cattle that the average farmer here is now keeping, and
still he takes but little more of his land away from other farming
operations. The intensive dairyman uses all that he raises for his
cows and usually buys some besides. The by-product farmer in Nebraska
has been in the habit of setting aside hardly any acreage for the use
of his cattle. But the combination is positively a success and would
have long ago been more in use in Nebraska had not the labor situation
presented difficulties almost impossible to overcome. My farm is small
and borders on the very edge of the city. Intensive dairying is the
only thing practical for me even though I can not expect to produce as
cheaply as farmers differently situated. I am re-stocking the farm this
year.