Part 6

The Herefords are having quite a boom in the West, but it is not as dairy stock, but as superior for beef. We have seen no strong claims put in for them for dairy purposes. The few we have seen did not seem to indicate any great dairy qualities, nor have any of the numerous portraits we have seen published borne the marks of dairy stock. But the claim of beef qualities we believe is well founded. Their great rivals in this line are the Shorthorns.

COMMON STOCK.

We have not mentioned the so-called "Native" stock as a dairy breed, because it is not a breed, but a mixture of breeds--crazy-quilt stock. We would not be understood as considering it of no value for dairy purposes, for when carefully selected, a dairy herd of common stock may be very valuable. Great milkers and great butter makers are not uncommon among them; but there is such a mixture of blood in their veins that there is no guarantee of their producing their like. They originally sprang from the best animals that the early emigrants could select to bring over with them from Europe. But they were subsequently cross-bred so promiscuously that no trace of the original blood can be discovered with any certainty. They were also subjected to great exposure and hardship, with scanty food, which had a greatly deteriorating tendency. But, perhaps worst of all, there was no careful selection of males for breeding purposes, nor any attempt at judicious coupling for improvement, or for even the maintenance of the existing status. In short, the entire treatment and all the surroundings had a deteriorating influence and a tendency to the production of scrubs. If we were to take all the existing pure-blood stock and breed it together promiscuously, while at the same time subjecting it to harsh treatment and neglect, it would not require a very long period to reduce it to the same mongrel and scrub condition in which we now find the common stock of the country. Yet some of our common stock make excellent crosses, when pure-blood males are used. But no improvement or valuable results could come from using common stock bulls on pure-blood or other cows. The male has the controlling influence, and to the constant use of pure-blood males must we look for the improvement of the common stock of the country and for the maintenance of the existing status of the pure-bloods; and not only must we use pure-blood males, but keep up a constant and careful selection of the best. Neither should we trust to cross-bred or grade bulls for breeding purposes; for the progeny will inherit the traits of ancestors on one side or the other, and hence will lack in uniformity, both in appearance and in quality. When we use a grade bull, the result is just the opposite of what it is when we use a pure blood. With the latter, we get half-bloods, then quarter, then eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, and so on, toward pure blood; but with a half-blood grade bull, the first offspring from common stock has only one-fourth pure blood, the next cross has only one-eighth, the third one-sixteenth pure blood, and so on--reducing the purity in the same ratio as the use of pure blood improves it--if we continue to breed from the grade male offspring. If we always use a half-blood male, there may be a slight improvement in the blood. But the improvement is too slow and the benefit too uncertain to make the use of a grade bull advisable when a pure blood can be had.

BREEDING DAIRY STOCK.

Having briefly glanced at the characteristics of the different breeds, it will not be out of place to say a few words about breeding and rearing dairy stock. There are three things to be considered:

1. Selection. 2. Coupling. 3. Care.

SELECTION.

By selection, we mean not only the selection of the breed adapted to the line of dairying pursued, but the selection of the individual animals to breed and rear animals from, and especially the bull to be used on the herd. This male should have a good pedigree--that is, be the lineal descendant of animals known to possess the qualities desired in the future herd. This is all-important; for however well-formed and comely he may be, he will transmit the qualities of his ancestors as surely as like begets like. This fact can never be safely ignored. Milk and butter qualities, in a dairy herd, must take precedence over beauty of form, however desirable the latter may be. The cows to rear stock from should be selected, as far as possible, on the same principle. Pedigree is not of as much consequence in a cow, so far as practical results are concerned, though it helps insure certainly in the quality of the offspring when that of the cow, as well as of the bull, is right. But we may safely venture on raising the calves of a good milker, as the probabilities are that the offspring will inherit the qualities of the sire, while it may also inherit the qualities of the dam, though she be of the most mongrel or mixed blood. If there is failure, however, it need not go beyond that one animal--unless an attempt is made to use a grade bull on a nondescript dam, in which case prepotency is weakened and mongrelism may show in the offspring. But grade bulls should never be used when it is possible to have the use of the right kind of pure blood, which is always stronger than mixed blood, and hence a pure blood sire is pretty sure to transmit the qualities of his herd and family, in a great degree, even when coupled with a cow of uncertain blood. In breeding, the one bull makes half the herd, and when used on common stock, the offspring will always be half-bloods the first generation. The second generation they become three-quarter bloods; the third seven eighths; the fourth fifteen-sixteenth, and so on, constantly approaching, but never reaching, purity. For all dairy purposes, however, they become practically as good as pure-bloods. But if the breeding is the other way--that is, if a scrub bull is used on pure-blood cows--the degeneration to the scrub status is in precisely the same ratio that we have just given for improvement when pure-blood males are constantly used. By using grade bulls, there is also a constant deterioration of blood, but not as rapid as when scrub bulls are used. The only safety is in using pure blood males. With these well selected and all other conditions maintained, the status is certain to be preserved, if improvements, in consequence of better care and selection, are not secured.

COUPLING.

Proper coupling, or rather the coupling of proper animals, has received little attention, and is now confined generally if not exclusively to professional breeders. But it is a subject to which the dairymen can as well as not pay attention with good results. By coupling proper animals, we mean having regard to individual points and qualities, never coupling those having the same defects, either in form or quality. For instance, to illustrate, a cow high on the rump may be safely bred to a bull low on the rump, or vice versa, the result, in all probability, being an offspring with a level rump. This is breeding together opposite extremes, depending on the one to correct the other. But if we breed two sloped rumps together, or two humped rumps, the result would be to exaggerate and intensify or strengthen this deformity in the offspring. So of quality or disposition. A nervous cow bred to a nervous or irritable bull, would be pretty sure to drop a calf that would be more nervous than either sire or dam. But if one of the parents is dull and sluggish and the other irritable and sensitive, the offspring might be an improvement on both. Again, a cow lacking in the quality of richness of milk, though giving a large flow, should not be coupled with a bull descended from a family having the same peculiarity of large flow lacking in richness. But if there is richness on one side and abundance on the other, the coupling of the two might reasonably be expected to result in improvement in the offspring, which might inherit both the large flow and the rich quality. Bad points and qualities are inherited as well as good ones. Hence, the constant aim and care must be to avoid developing what is objectionable as well as to develop what is desired. It must be constantly borne in mind that like begets like. All the trouble attending inbreeding, crossing or grading comes from not properly regarding this fact. Where inbreeding is followed, the only disadvantage arises from the fact that all the animals are likely to have the same defects of form, quality and constitution. But where these are all right, the advantage is that inbreeding fixes the features and qualities and secures the establishment of them in a type or breed. But crossing or grading animals having the same failing will prove just as disastrous as would inbreeding. But crossing may be done in a way to develop good qualities, and these may afterward be fixed by careful selection and inbreeding of offspring. This subject of breeding is one of great importance, and yet little understood. Many things pertaining to it are yet to be settled, though great progress has been made during the last few years, and public attention is being drawn to it as it never was before. It will be found that man can become master of the situation, and may, by observing certain fundamental conditions and varying only the details, breed domestic animals of almost any form, disposition, and quality, that he may desire.

CARE AND KEEP.

Better care and keep, however, are the key notes to improvement. Higher conditions and better surroundings lead to improvements which may be developed into fixed traits by proper selection and coupling, provided the improved environment is maintained. The status can be maintained only by maintaining the conditions. This is what we mean by care. Under this head, we include all that pertains to the health and comfort of the animal. Judicious care is of prime importance not only in breeding but in securing the best results in dairy products. Proper food and drink and enough of it, with shelter, kind treatment, regularity and the most thorough system, must be provided, or corresponding failure, for any and all abuse, neglect or mistake, is sure to follow.

FEEDING STOCK.

The question of feeding stock is yearly rising into greater prominence and importance. Formerly, it was thought that anybody who could throw out coarse fodder and hay to cattle knew enough for all practical purposes about feeding, and that any sort of a shelter, or no shelter, if the animal survived, was sufficient. Better ideas are beginning to prevail. Few men now think they know all that can be learned about feeding stock, and those who know the most are the most anxious to learn. A thorough knowledge of feeding requires a knowledge of physiology and biology, with the chemical composition and nutritive qualities of the different kinds of food. Added to this must be the practical knowledge gained by observation of the effects of the different foods on different animals under various conditions. And when all is known that can be, there will still be room left for the exercise of the best judgment of the feeder as to the conditions and requirements of the animal fed, and as to the quality of the foods available and the quantity and proportions of each.

CARBONACEOUS AND NITROGENOUS FOODS.

It is pretty well known what the constituents of the animal organism are, and what elements of nutrition are required in the food for the sustenance of the animal. Of these primal elements--some twelve or fifteen in number--it is found that, practically, when foods combined contain two of them in proper proportion, the rest are generally present in sufficient quantity. These two are CARBON and NITROGEN, and the foods containing them in relatively large proportion are respectively called carbonaceous and nitrogenous. All foods contain these elements in greater or less proportion. The proper proportion for feeding is found to be about one of nitrogen to five or six of carbon. If the temperature of the weather is low, the proportion of carbon may be raised to eight, and even ten, where little exercise is had--as, for instance, milch cows standing in a cold stable. But, in hot weather, when cows are giving milk, the carbon may be reduced to four and even three--that is, so that there shall be one part of nitrogen to three or four parts of carbon. The carbon is heat and fat producing, and some class it as motor producing, but we think this is a mistake, save so far as heat is essential to motion. We think nitrogen is motor producing as well as muscle producing--or, in other words, that the element which produces the organs of motion also fills them with energy, for the exercise of which heat is essential. We cannot have motion, or even life, much below the normal temperature of about 98 degrees Fahrenheit. At all events, it is found necessary to feed nitrogenous food to all animals that are working hard, to supply the waste of muscle--and we think also to replace the expended energy. Dr. J. Milner Fothergill, in his work on the "Maintenance of Health," published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, says: "The effect of the nitrogen upon the brain is to evolve nerve force freely, and this rules and regulates the actual force which takes its origin in the respiratory foods consumed. These respiratory foods furnish the force itself, but the nitrogenized foods furnish the manifesters of force." It appears to us that the nerve force, which he says is evolved, is all there is of it, save the requisite conditions afforded by heat. Dr. Houghton says: "The hunted deer will outrun the leopard in a fair open chase, because the force supplied to its muscles by vegetable food is capable of being given out continuously for a long period of time; but in a sudden rush at a near distance, the leopard will infallibly overtake the deer, because its flesh food stores up in the blood a reserve of force capable of being given out instantaneously in the form of exceedingly swift muscular action." Dr. Fothergill goes on to say: "Nitrogen is the essential factor in all explosive compounds, from gunpowder to nerve force. It endows the consumer of it with energy and enables him to discharge his force quickly and rapidly." Again, he says of the race-horse: "His food affects his speed and endurance, and without his nitrogenized food he would cut a poor figure at a race, because without it he could not discharge his force fast enough."

WHAT IS CARBON?

It is pure in the diamond, nearly pure in coal, and is the principal constituent of all woody fiber--also of oils, fat, starch, sugar, etc. Nearly all the visible organic world is composed of carbon. It appears to be very plentiful, but of our atmosphere it composes only about four-ten-thousandths, while oxygen, with which it unites to form carbonic acid gas for vegetation to feed on, composes one-fifth and nitrogen four-fifths. Really, we have little trouble in securing carbonaceous foods. The only difficulty is to get them in a digestible form. Only what is soluble can be digested and assimilated by the animal organism. Hence, great care must be taken to get food in a proper condition for animal nutrition.

WHAT IS NITROGEN?

It is almost pure in the albumens; both vegetable and animal. It is nearly pure in the white of egg. Hence, nitrogenous foods are quite commonly called albuminoids. It exists abundantly in all the proteins--as cheese or caseine, fibrin or lean meat, albumen, etc. Nitrogen, in its free state, appears to be an innocuous gas, diluting the oxygen and preventing it from rapidly oxydizing or burning up everything. As before said, it constitutes four-fifths of our atmosphere, but does not appear to be directly appropriated by either vegetables or animals. As food for either, it must be in combination with other elements--especially carbon--and yet it is very difficult to make it unite with other elements, and hard to maintain the union when it is once formed. Its disposition is to break these unions and seek an idle state of freedom. Hence it is that, when held in durance, its constant tendency to free itself makes it the motor force in all animal organisms, and the terrible energy in all explosives. It is secured in the form of ammonia in rain, by a process called nitrification it unites with the soil, and it exists in all decayed animal and vegetable matter in a form suitable for plant food. Men and animals get it by eating vegetables or by eating one another. It is a very abundant and important element, yet very difficult to obtain in an available form for plant and animal food. Fortunately, but comparatively little of it is needed.

COMPOUNDING RATIONS.

By referring to the feed tables furnished by the analysts of this country and Europe, the farmer can learn the constituents of foods. Then, knowing the ration required, he can take different foods and compound in the right proportions aimed at in feeding, whether for work, for growth, for fat, for bare maintenance, or for milk. We give the German standards for feeding animals:

PER DAY AND PER 1,000 LBS. LIVE WEIGHT. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nutritive digestible sub. ------------------------- ANIMALS. Total Albumi- Carbo- Total Nutritive organic dry noids. hydrates. Fat. nutritive ratio. substance. sub. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. 1. Oxen at rest in stall 17.5 0.7 8.0 0.15 8.85 1:12 2. Oxen moderately worked 24.0 1.6 11.3 0.30 13.20 1:7.5 3. Oxen heavily worked 26.0 2.4 13.2 0.50 16.10 1:6.0 4. Oxen fattening, 1st period 27.0 2.5 15.0 0.50 18.00 1:6.5 Oxen fattening, 2d period 26.0 3.0 14.8 0.70 18.50 1:5.5 Oxen fattening, 3d period 25.0 2.7 14.8 0.60 18.10 1:6.0 5. Cows in milk 24.0 2.5 12.5 0.40 15.40 1:5.4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GROWING CATTLE--PER DAY AND PER HEAD. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Age. Average live weight Months. per head. 2 to 3 150 pounds 3.3 0.6 2.1 0.30 3.00 1:4.7 3 to 6 300 pounds 7.0 1.0 4.1 0.30 5.40 1:5.0 6 to 12 500 pounds 12.0 1.3 6.8 0.30 8.40 1:6.0 12 to 18 700 pounds 16.8 1.4 9.1 0.28 10.78 1:7.0 18 to 24 850 pounds 20.4 1.4 19.3 0.26 11.96 1:8.0

SAMPLE RATIONS.

Dr. Wolf gives an illustration of the standard for a milch cow, by saying that 30 lbs. of young clover hay will keep a cow in good milk; and that this contains of dry organic substance, 23 lbs., of which is digestible--albuminoids 3.21, carbohydrates 11.28, and fat 0.63. This is .71 lb. albuminoids more, and .22 lb. of carbohydrates less, with .13 lb. of fat more, than the standard. Then he takes the richest and best meadow hay, of which 30 lbs. contains of organic substance 23.2 lbs., having digestible--albuminoids 2.49 lbs., carbohydrates 12.75 lbs., and fat 42 lb. This is almost exactly the feeding standard.

As will have been seen by what has preceded, the German standard ration for a milch cow is 24 lbs. of dry organic substance, containing 2.50 lbs. nitrogenous food, and 12.90 lbs. of carbonaceous food. To secure this, Dr. Wolff recommends for every 1,000 lbs. of live weight:

12 lbs. average meadow hay. 6 " oat straw. 20 " mangolds. 25 " brewers' grain. 2 " cotton seed cake.

Prof. S.W. Johnson's ration for the same purpose is: