MILK AND. BUTTER RECORDS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 25 May 1917, Page 2

MILK AND. BUTTER RECORDS

; The. system devised; Jjy the breeders |of pure dairy-stock and departmental experts in conference some years ago (says Hickory in. the Australasian) must be admitted to be as "complete a one as can; reasonably be carried out under present conditions*o£ labor. It provides for weighing, at each milking every day by the dairyman;, for tite sampling of milk and.check*-weighing once a month, over a milking period of 273 days, by ; dairy-supervisors; the determination of butter-fat percentage by experts, and the classification of the cows according, to standards, which vary with the ages' of individual beasts,, to* some one :of which standards every cow must attain before she is granted a certificate. Many dairymen, baulk at the daily weignings; but. in nractice they would find, the work. involved not nearly so large as might be imagined. In some systems in other parts o£ the world only weekly weighings are deemed I necessary. From an experiment carried j out at the farrn^ of. Miss (Do&ts, Brattles Grange, Brenchley, Kent, England, constant weighings are^shown to be abeoltely necessary^ if accuracy is to be obtained. During one. year the milk j records taken twice daily were compared with those of "the • Wednesday in each week. The weekly record in one case agreed with the actual yield, and in, some instances the difference amounted to as muoh as a 1000 gallons during the whole lacreatioin period. The deduction arrived, at was that weekly weighings only give a useful indication of the milking properties of a cow, but to obtain; an; accurate estimate, the milk must h& weighed at every milking. If systematically carried out,.the time occupied in weighing is small. The weight of the bucket should always be knowni beforehand, and be stencilled on it- | While the pure: herds are giving -an excellent, account of. themselves, this important movement Has not caught- j on yet with the owners of ordinary! herds ■ by whom, itds: aui'te; time a commencement was. made" The bull—and pure bull? of milking strains are now purchasable—may be half the herd, but he is not the' whole> herd. Now is the time, while meat is dear and labor scarce, to head tne unprofitable cow for the butcher's blbcfc, also the cow which' only just pays, hey way, as soon a>s she can be replaced by heifers from deep and rich milk ing- cows. The movement wants a big; nusfr from agricultural societies. There is no reason why on each' farm the sanrolmg and testing should' not bo carried~out, or at least on groups of farms. .Ertelligent girk could soon be trained to carry out the work. Official testers are only necessary when the animaF of their progeny areo to be- sold on their productionfigures. The idea of competition should be cut out, as i£ only reads to unfair practices when the necessary supervision is not available. The impression should be given that the reward is in the shape of increased' revenue from the cows, which it can easily be shown doe? result. As previously "pointed out, testing leads to Setter, not necessarily heavier, but nearly always more economical, feeding; and it is upon this stage of live-stock husbandry wo are now about to enter in Australia.