More Cow Tips from Esther Shuttleworth

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Esther Shuttleworth—who's been known to raise, keep and milk more than just a few cows in her day — has absorbed just as much information about the critters as has Hank Rate. Most of her rules of thumb jibe with Hank's but, as might be expected, a few do not. Here's some added tips or divergent opinion from Esther.

My father — a well-known stock trader in the Muncie, Indiana area — taught me the easiest way of all to turn the average family cow dry: just stop milking her. Don't agonize about tapering off and don't fool with her feed. Just stop milking. Only if the cow is a very heavy milker will you have to cut down a little and, even then, milking her every other milking for a few days or only partly milking her (taking, say, one gallon from a five gallon producer) is all the tapering you'll need. And, by the way . . . when I do milk, I milk "thumbs in".

If you keep hay in a manger where your cow or cows can reach it year-round, they won't bloat nearly as bad as when they have no access to such dry feed. But never take a cow that's been eating only dry feed and suddenly turn her out on frosted or wet pasture (especially bird's-foot trefoil, ladino or clover). The sudden change can kill cattle quicker than you'll believe.

Minor bloat is nothing to worry about and you can treat moderately severe bloat by drenching a cow with a mixture of either (1) a pint of linseed oil in a pint of water or (2) one cup of kerosene with a pint and a half of water. Shake either mixture vigorously in a big ginger ale bottle, hold the stricken animal's head up and nose closed and stick the neck of the bottle down the side of the cow's mouth between her lip and the outside of her teeth (don't let her chomp on the glass). Stroke the animal's throat to make her swallow. Call a vet and call him fast for major bloat that puts — or even threatens to put — a cow down.

Bloody scours in a calf should be treated by a veterinarian but the simplest and most effective cure for ordinary calf scours is three eggs, three or four times a day. Break the eggs in a plastic drinking cup, do not stir and pour them down the calf as it sucks your fingers. Beating the eggs and putting them into the baby's milk won't do any good at all. Our vet says the eggs will do even more good if you feed calf shells and all . . ..but I wouldn't recommend this the first few times you try it as you might cut the baby's mouth and throat with the shells.

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