PRE-MILKING STIMULUS INCREASES OUTPUT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29264, 23 July 1960, Page 8

PRE-MILKING STIMULUS INCREASES OUTPUT

MILKING methods might be responsible for very real" differences in milk production, Dr. C. P. McMeekan, superintendent of the Ruakura Animal Research Station, said at the station’s farmers' conference when he introduced Mr - D. S.’ M. Phillips, a senior research officer at the station who has been studying the effect of premilking stimulus on production in identical twins. * Mr Phillips worked with 12 sets of identical twins. One animal out of each set was given a 30 seconds stimulus immediately before the cups were put on. • The treatment consisted of hosing the Udder with cold running water and rubbing the dirt off, the gentle rubbing of the teats and lower udder with the hands, and the taking of a squirt or two from qach teat before fitting the cups. The control twin was not given any stimulus to the udder at all before the cups were pul on. The cows were all milked normally in a herd of about 65. They were bailed up in the normal way and were taken into the bail in any order. A four-cow single Ruakura machine was used with the vacuum set at 15 inches of mercury! The pulsation was set at 40 to the minute with a reduced squeeze giving about 30 per cent full air pressure. A small weight of 3|lb was used on the claw at

the end of milking for machine stripping. This was applied when the sight glass started to clear and continued until the cow was finished.

Over a season the stimulated twins on average produced 71.61 b more of fat or 32 per cent, and oh average milked 47 days longer. This represented about £lO 10S a cow additional profit. Rir Phillips also found that the stimulated cows milked much faster, particularly when their extra production was taken into account. The stimulated cow actually took on average 20 seconds less time to milk, but if milking time was based on milk production then the stimulated cows took nearly 1.25 minutes less to give the same amount of milk These results were carried further to see the influence of the stimulus on let down—the period in wjiich the let-down hormone released at milking time is active in the udder. It has been found that this time varies from as little as two minutes for some cows up to as much as 45 minutes. The result of this work was that there was a very strong suggestion that cows with a highly active let-down response were little affected by lack of stimulus while those with relatively poor let-down response were markedly reduced in production by lack of stimulus. Unfortunately Mr Phillips said

it was not possible yet to distinguish readily between these two groups of cows in the field, although it was hoped that tests might be devised Jor field use. He told a questioner that breeding from bulls whose progeny would not need stimulus was a possibility. In the meantime Mr Phillips said that there could be little doubt that the Increased production resulting from the use of an adequate pre-milk-ing stimulus, together with the reduction in milking time, , would make its introduction a very worth-while proposition.