FREQUENCY OF MILKING.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20497, 16 March 1932, Page 18

FREQUENCY OF MILKING.

effect upon yield. In a recent article on the "Production of Dairy Cows as Affected by Frequency and Regularity of Milking and Feeding," by Mr T. E. Woodward, senior dairy husbandman, Bureau of Dairying of the United 'States Department of Agriculture, the following facts of interest to dairy cow owners were reported after a closely-super-vised series of tests: Cows milked twice a day and three times a day in alternate periods of 30. days, following 10-day transitional periods, gave 11 per cent, more milk and nearly 10 per cent, more butterfat when milked three times a day. Cows milked twice a day and three times a day for long periods, 217 to 365 days, gave nearly 20 per cent, more milk and nearly 21 per cent, more butter-fat when milked three times a day. . . The decline in milk yield in the long periods was much greater when the cows were milked twice a day than when they were milked three times a dav. . Cows milked four times and three times a day, in alternate periods of 30 days following 10-day transitional periods, gave 7 per cent, more milk and 6 per cent, more butter-fat when milked four times a day. The explanation offered for the oreater vield following the more frequent milking is that relief from pressure of milk within the udder allows secretion to proceed more freely. Changing milkers resulted in an almost negligible decrease in milk. Milking at regular instead of irregular hours resulted in 0.9 per cent, more milk, find 1.2 per cent, less but-ter-fat in one experiment, and 1.5 per cent, more milk and 2.6 per cent, less butter-fat in the other, when cows of average to good production were used.

An experiment recently carried out in the pumice country indicates that control of grass, never letting it get away, is, together with complete fertilisation, the true solution of successfully establishing, farms on these areas. Hitherto, farms have been established on a largo scale, and therefore intensive methods have been out of the question, but it is the intensive method that is required. Grass control, good fertilisation, and the heavy stocking that comes -with rotational grazing are absolutely necessary. Cost of transport of fertilisers is a drawback to the development of the pumice country, and ma nv now regard the stoppage of the Kotorua-Taupo railway as a bad mistake.