Page 5 Advertisements Column 2

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 2210, 29 August 1910, Page 5

A dairy farmer, who has had a lengthened experience of milking large herds of cows in Taranaki, has raised an interesting question. He was asked what proportion of her yield of milk does a cow give in the first six months after calving ? As the farmer had keptreturns of the milk of his cows for years past it was no difficulty for him to answer the inquiry. He found that on an average his cows gave a little over 78 per cent, of their milk in the first six months, some going up as high as 81 per cent. Now the question he raises is : Does it pay to milk a cow more than six months '? He puts it this way : A man has a herd of 80 cows for which he requires four bands to milk. If instead of bringing in all these cows to calve at the same time and milking them till the usual time of drying off, 40 of them milked for six months and the other 40 in the next six months, the service of two milkers could be dispensed with. This is against the theory that cows should be milked as long as possible to stimulate the milk~producing powers, but it is agreed that a cow milkgd for six months only will give a greater yield in that time than if the lactation period is continued for nine or ten months. The cow would, of course, have a longer rest and be in better condition for milk production in the following year. The question has probably never been raised before and is worth looking into,