BUILDING UP A DAIRY HERD

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 2560, 18 December 1924, Page 11

BUILDING UP A DAIRY HERD

Mr (Andrew M'Candlish, advisory officer in milk production, West of Scotland College of Agriculture, in a paper on the building up of a dairy herd from scrubs, discussed the experiment carried out at lowa State

College, beginning in 1907. At that time, ho said, the cows were as far from being dairy cows as they could imagine. They had no udder or mammary veins worth mentioning, and they had not been used to good feeding. He indicated that, as a result of good feeding and the use of good pure-bred sires in the herd, there was considerable improvement in the app'earanco of the animals now and some were approaching the dairy type. In one generation the milk production had been increased 39 per cent, and in two generations the production of milk had been doubled. Another satisfactory result of the gradingl up had been a very material decrease in the cost of production per unia. Summing up, Mr M'Candlish said that in building up a dairy herd from scrhbs or from good cows they had to look to three points—feeding, breeding, and selection. The cattle must be well fed from their birth. Unless they used a good bull they could not expect to get a good producing herd, and no matter what breeding policy theV were pursuing, unless they weeded out the scrubs that cropped up occasionally, they could not make general progress.