A COLUMN FOR FARMERS

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 164, 13 August 1929, Page 10

A COLUMN FOR FARMERS

REARING HEALTH IER CALVES. PRESERVES" G BUTTER IN VACUUM. NEW GROOMING METHOD. (Specially Written for tlie Tclegraph., The rearing of healtliier calves is oue of the matters faciag all dairyinrmers at the present time, and the wish to rear Ihem as clieaply as possible is uppemiost in the minds ot all farmers. Whole milk must, ot course, l>e given for a short period, but i-hereafter skim milk, plus suitable nieals, makes a satisfactory diet. On farnis which supply cheese factories, however, 110 skim milk is available, and many farmers fall bnck on the uhey supply, imagining that this highiy acirl food is as useful for calf feeding as skim milk. It should not be lorgotten thab skim milk is merely whole milk wiili the fat removed. The .mbstitution of something which will tr.ke the place of the fat is all that is needed to make a food approximately equal to whole milk. Under no circumstances can whev be compared with skim milk for calf feeding. Whey fed calves — and here we are speaking of calves which receive considerable qnantities are easily rccognisable. Ihcy become pot-beJlied, with liarsh coats, and 110 inatter how well they are fed in later life, are -unlikely to relurn as niuch butter-fat to their cwners as are well-fed calves, Investigations carried out recently at the Bowett Rescnrch Institute in Scotland snow that it is possible to rear excellcnt. calves although using only very srnall qnantities of whole milk, ano no skim. This cxperiinent was conductej with calves which were housea all the time. but a subsidiary experiment was made with calves fed out 01 doors. For the first few weeks the

ojcf. consisted of oatmeal and linseedmcal made into a gruel, and later the\ were fed with crushed oats and lin .•^eed cake. with as mucli hay as thev wanted. In addition a protein and nuneral mixture was fed consisting of hlood meal, and very small quantities of chalk, salt, potassium iodide, ferric oxide and steamed bone flour. It was found that the calves receiving the meals plus the mineral mixture did hctter than those fed entirely on whole milk. Where the calves had access to good pastnre, the mineral mixture seemed to the unnecessary. The lesson for New Zealand farmers would seem to be that adequate feeding on proper Imes, with the addition of free running on a well top-dressed paddock, will allow healthy calves to be reared. rf growth is not completelv satisfactory an addition of minerals to the diet would he .justified and would probably give entirely satisfactory results. As whey is liighlv acid and as the exporiment shows that it is unnecessary, it should he avoided in the interests t-f better calrcs. BUTTER IN VACUUM. About a year ago a good deal was heard in New Zealand of a vacuum packing process which, it was tliought, would rerolutionise the carriage of nutter and cheese to England. Extensive experiments were carried out at Hawera, and the cheese which was pa..ked in vacuum opened out after varying periods of up to a year, in perfect condition. Attempts to secure the samo results with cheese sent to England, were less satisfactory a portion of each shipment being in had condirion 011 arrivnl. At the"1N. D.A. conference at Whangarei several quesvlons regarding this system were asked hv farmers, ard Mr P. O. Yeale, the scientist 111 charge of the Hawera laboratory, stated that the theory of vacuum packing was sound but that tcclinical diffieulties often crept in to a process that was theoreticallv correct. One of the diffieulties had been that rough handling .of the containers broke the vacuum, in which case conditions were ideal for bacterial develonment. In the latest issne of a scientific journal from abroad a French scientist gives voice to' the statement Ihat packing butter in vacuum offers such oustanding advantages that it warrants investigation botli practically and scientificaliy, and states that butter could be mointaiued in better condition if held in vacuum tlian _ if, as at present. it were merely kept in cold stornge. His statements are interestmg because splendid results were recoicled with the New Zealand butter packeA in vacuum. One-of the greatest dilReulties to he overcome were the new system adopted, would be the pre;udice against tin containers, needed ior the securing of a vacuum. This is icss intense in the casb of cheese, than butter, for with the forrfter the whole cheese is removed when the container is opened. Ilandling butter is, of course a mucli more difficult problem. NEW USE FOR ELECTRIG CLEANERS. It has been left to a Belgian scientist to discover a new and highl.y successful method of grooming animals. He had made a special type of brush, attached it to an electric _ vacuum oleaner and found that grooming could be carried out mucli moro quickl.v and mucli more thoroughly than by liand. As a result of his- enterprise several of tlie largest s'ables in Belgium are bemg fitted out with the new apparatus. and grooming in future will be done bv electricity. The idea would be applicahlo in any stable and would certainlv seem to he a time-saver. ARTICHOKES FOR PIGS. Extensivo experiments carried out 011 the feeding of pigs with meals and with artichokes in certain proportions, uhow that it takes about lOlbs. of artichokes to replace a single pound of meal. Where pigs were given free acccss to artichokes in addition to being fed with small auantities of meal, they did better than those that received meal alone. An exclusive diet of artichokes was found to be very unprofitable. Skim milk, a small quantity of meal and artichokes would, from this seem to be a satisfactory combination. The various co-operative pig organisations which are now functioning in New Zealand are trying to ■uipress on farmers the need for top-ping-off their pigs with meal of some sort. The skim fed pig loses too much weight iii killmg, but this loss can be reduced tbrough the topping-off on meal. Now that farmers can receive actual weights in some of these organisations the effort is" well worth wliile.