THE RED POLL AS A DAIRY COW.

Northern Advocate, 21 August 1915, Page 4

THE RED POLL AS A DAIRY COW.

First a Jersey cow held the record for Victoria for butter-fat production; then pride of place was gained by an Ayrshire (says the Australasian), and now a Red Poll has beaten all previous records. This is the cow Muria, by Redmond, dam Beulah, by Hobby, who .completed her nine months official test on April 80, and yielded 12,297 lbs. milk, with an average test of 5.74, which is 706 lbs. butter-fat, nearly equivalent to 804 lbs. of commercial butter. Her yield of milk on the last day of test was 32 lbs., and as she has not proved in calf, she is still being milked, with a view to seeing what her figures will be for 12 months. The world's record for 12 months for the Red Poll breed was 13,1 GO lbs. milk, which yielded 603.G lbs. butter-fat, according to recent American figures. Muria, therefore, should easily head the world's list for both milk and butter. The highest record for milk is 13,536 lbs., produced by Jean dv Luth Pear, the daughter of the holder of the old butter-fat record; but which only gave 546.5 lbs. butter-fat. Muria has been a fairly good performer ever since she was first tested in 1910-11 when her figures were 283 days in milk, 5461 lbs. milk, 240.7 lbs butter-fat. Last year in' the Government standard tests, she produced in 273 days 7287 lbs. milk, with a 5.0 test, yielding 364 lbs.

butter-fat. Her monetary returns for the period just past, would be £36, even if we take the price of butter-fat at Is., which ia the average in normal years. There is a wide difference between this amount and the return from the average milch cow in Victoria. It must be remembered, too, that the Red Polls carry a considerable amount of flesh, and are valuable for butchering.