GROUP HERD-TESTING.

Matamata Record, Volume XIII, Issue 1111, 3 April 1930, Page 6

GROUP HERD-TESTING.

EXPERIENCES IN VICTORIA Australian Delegates’ Tour. A mooting of several members of tlio visiting Australian farming delegates interested in group herd-testing was. held recently at the offices of the New Zealand Co-operative Herd-Test-ing Association, Hamilton. Mr S. J. Sheaf, general manager of the association, outlined the methods adopted by his association, and related the progress made by the New Zealand Co-operative Herd l Testing Association, since its inception. He stated that the association operated 71 groups over the. Auckland province, and employed an outside staff of approximately 70 men, and an office staff of 18. Mr Sheaf explained the system of calf-marking, which had made remarkably rapid progress since its inauguration in the 1925-26 season, and was playing a most important part in thedevelopment of the herd-improvement scheme. Messrs A. H. Moore and Gr, Howey, directors of the Victorian United Testing Association, which is the controlling body for herd-testing associations in Victoria, gave a brief resume of herd-testing in Victoria. This is the only State, they reported, which adopted group herd-testing to any extent, and that at present there were 90,000 cows under test, representing 55 per cent, of the total cows in Victoria. Mr Moore quoted some very interesting figures from his own herd of 418 cows, ■' ■which averaged 3151 b faf for 273 days, while 10 of the herd averaged 6601 b of fat for the same period. Mr Moore had the honour of owning the champion cow, a grade Jersey, of Victoria, for the 1928-29 season, which produced 8291 b of fat in 273 days. The highest herd in the State was a pedigree herd of 16 cows, in the irrigated lucerne area in Northern Victoria, which produced over 5001 b fat in 273 days. The delegates stated that thb herdtesting associations in Victoria received a Government subsidy of approximately 4s per cow «as compared with the New Zealand Government subsidy of Is per cow. The delegates were astonished at the magnitude of group herd-testing in New Zealand, and said they hoped to learn a great deal from our methods, especially in connection with the marking of heifer and pedigree bull calves.