Perhaps no better sign of careful husbandry can be found than in the
attention paid to brute animals. We always expect a thriftless fellow
to neglect and abuse his stock. When we see them well cared for, we
always judge the owner to be a good farmer. Cattle ranging out often
have had good picking, and if partly fed at the rack, will come out in
the spring well-conditioned. Where hay and grain are a drug, we
suppose that all cautions about wasting them will be laughed at.
_Care_ and _economy_ are not the peculiar features of western farming;
profusion and easiness are the more characteristic. But there are some
points of attention to which every farmer should give heed.
CLEANING THE STABLE.—When cattle lie out, this trouble is saved in
their case. But it is almost universally the practice to let the
manure accumulate in stables for horses from autumn to spring, and
sometimes from year to year, until its quantity compels its removal.
This is all well enough for the sake of the manure—it is sheltered,
and its strength preserved. But it is at the expense of the horse. The
concentrated effluvia is bad; and lying down upon manure, night after
night, causes the skin to break out in blotches; and sometimes the
whole ham is affected so much that the hair comes off, and the skin is
inflamed and covered with running sores. The ammonia of urine (which
abounds in horse manure), is caustic, and acts upon the skin like a
blister upon the human flesh. If Providence had ordained that a sore
should break out on the owner, for every one on his stock occasioned
by his negligence, animals would have a much better time than they now
do.
COWS WITH CALF.—Especial attention should be paid to these. As they
grow heavy, toward spring, they should not be chased by horses or
dogs, or beaten by unmannerly boys and men. Their food should be
abundant and nutritious. A cow brought to calving in spring in a very
thin and lean condition will not recover through the whole summer, no
matter how carefully tended. The cow, the calf, and your own profit in
both, require that you should bring your cows to the spring in
first-rate condition. If you have _roots_, feed them; but if not, give
a slop of shorts, meal, and flax-seed cake. This last ingredient is
eminently serviceable in laying on flesh.
MILKING COWS.—Let them be milked regularly without regard to weather.
A careless girl will, if not watched, milk irregularly, and what is
worse, leave the cow _unstript_. The morning work presses, or the cold
pinches, or she is in haste, at night, to go a visiting, or some one
of a hundred other reasons tempt her to milk out the full flow, and
leave the strippings. A cow so abused will be injured, in a short
time, so much, that all the care in the world will not bring her back
again.
See that stock are treated with gentleness and patience. It is a shame
to abuse a kind and docile animal, and it is useless to thrash those
that are not so. In either case, kindness is the best policy. A man
who is brutal to cattle is more of a beast than they are. We have seen
many a man who, if he had two more legs, would not fetch the price of
a stock-hog.