“Breeding cows should be pastured where there is abundant grass and plenty of water, and care should be taken to protect them from crowding too close together, and from being struck, or from fighting with one another:  moreover, to protect them against being worried in summer by cattle flies and those minute insects which get under their tails, some farmers shut them up during the heat of the day in pens, which should be strewn with leaves or some other bedding on which they can rest comfortably.  In summer they are driven to water twice a day, in winter once.  Against the time when they are due to drop their calves you should arrange to give them access to fresh forage near the stable which they can eat with appetite as they go out, for at that time they are very dainty about their food.  A watch out must be kept to prevent their frequenting chilly places, for cold depresses the vitality as much as hunger.

“These are the rules for raising neat cattle:  the suckling calves should not be suffered to sleep with their dams, for they might crush them, but should be given access to them in the morning and when they return from pasture.  When the calves are weaned the dams should be comforted by having green stuff thrown into their stalls for them to eat.  The floor of a calf stable, like most others, should be paved with stone to keep their hoofs from rotting.  The calves may be pastured with their dams after the autumn equinox.  Bull calves should not be altered before they are two years old, as they recover with difficulty if the operation is performed sooner, while if it is done later they are apt to be stubborn and useless.

“As in the case of other cattle, the herd should be gone over every year and the culls thrown out because they occupy the room of those which might be profitable.  If a cow loses her calf she should be given another to nurse, taken from a cow which has not a sufficient supply of milk.  Calves six months old are fed wheat bran and barley meal and young grass, and care should be taken that they are watered morning and evening.

“The rules for taking care of the health of neat cattle are many.  I have those which Mago has recorded written out and I take care that my herdsman reads them frequently.

“I have already said that a yearling and a two-year old bull should be provided for every sixty cows, though some have more or less cows in the herd:  thus Atticus has two bulls for every seventy cows.  Some observe one rule as to the number of cattle to the herd, some another.  I am among those who think that one hundred is enough, but Atticus here, like Lucienus, has one hundred and twenty.”

So far Vaccius.

Of asses

VI.  While Vaccius was speaking, Murrius had returned with Lucienus and now began: