OCR Text |
Show SOUR SKIMMED MILK FOR CALVES That In summer time calves do ns well on sour sklnr milk as they do on sweet will be Interesting news to many farmers who have hitherto been kept from raising calves by the expense of keeping the milk sweet In hot weather. This expenso experiments experi-ments carried out by" tho department Indicate to bo quite unnecessary. The calves will make as rapid gains on sour skim milk. In winter, it Is true, this Is not quite so satisfactory. It chills the calves and some of them drink It with great reluctance. Very young calves have even been known to refuso It altogether. On the other hand ,of course, It Is much easier to keep the milk sweeten winter. In calling the nttentlon of farmers to these facts, however, the department depart-ment at tho same time emphasizes au Important precaution. Unless the milk Is produced and kept under cleanly conditions, It may become con laminated with disease producing bacteria. Farmers should therefore allow tho milk to sour quickly and then feed tt without delny. In tho course of these experiments sour skim milk was fed to twenty-two twenty-two calves, Holstclns, Jersoys, and. Guernseys, at different seasons of the year. In no case did It cause digestive di-gestive disturbances even when the change from sweet to sour milk was made abruptly when tho calves were only a few days old. Moreover, no evil results followed the alternate use of sweet and sour. It seems, therefore there-fore that the common iilen that sour milk leads to scours Is qu'te unfounded. unfound-ed. The calves, It was founddld not like the sour milk hs well as the, sweet, but in the majority of cases soon became accustomed, to it. The aversion, however, Increased when the milk was fed them at a low temperature. |