OCR Text |
Show ' ' ' I '. ' I t f t ' , ft W ?i ! wr. )f t ) T Vs t . " : 1 i i t Local Dairymen Raise Calves With Less Milk Utah county dairymen are more interested in raising good calves than they have been in years, according ac-cording to a number of them who were interviewed recently. They want particularly good heifers to turn into future milk cows, because be-cause the dairy business seems likely to be on the up-grade for a number of years to come. This new interest in good calves has raised a question on many farms hereabouts. Dairymen want to ship all the milk they can, yet don't want to hold back the growth of young heifer calves. It has been found that many dairymen around here are solving ; the problem of raising good calves with, a small amount of milk by feeding a dry calf starter. This is not the messy meal which farmers used to cuss a few years ago as they mixed it into gruels for feeding. feed-ing. This is a dry feed containing little pellets mixed with crushed oats and other bulky feeds which calves seem to relish right from the trough as shown in the accompanying accom-panying picture. The best thing about this type of feed, according to local dairymen, dairy-men, is that it is much cheaper 'and easier to feed than the milk it replaces. re-places. A bag of one brand of this feed, known as Purina Calf Star-tena, Star-tena, will replace 4 cans or approximately ap-proximately 350 pounds of milk, according to local dairymen who are using it. With milk at $2.00 a cwt., they can ship 4 cans of milk to market and get about $7.00 for it. This leaves about $3.30 to $3.70 in their pocket a nice reward for feeding dry feed instead of good milk which is so much in demand right now for human consumption. Even with milk at $1.10 a cwt., It still costs less to feed the dry starter, according to Smart's Feed & Produce Co., local feed dealer, who supplies several local dairymen dairy-men with this type of feed. Naturally, a good dairyman's first question is whether this plan of feeding will raise as good a calf as can be done with whole milk. It has been found that that question can be answered with a big "Yes" by several dairymen in this locality who have been feeding dry feed. Smart's Feed says that many of their customers raise even bigger and better calves by this method than they used to do with whole milk, supplemented with a little grain or bran after the calf is around 3 months old. Dairymen put the dry feed in front of calves when they are just 4 days old, and feed a small amount of whole milk along with it for one month. After that the calves have learned to eat and digest the dry feed and milk is taken away entirely. It has been found that calves look a little thinner right after the milk is cut off but that they soon pick up and actually grow more stretch and frame than milk-fed calves by the time they are four months old. When 4 months old the calves are put on a lower cost growing grain ration, i |