DELICATE ORGAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22413, 8 May 1936, Page 5

DELICATE ORGAN

FUNCTION OF THE UDDER BY HYGEIA No 11. Texture and quality arc vitally important in the udder. Size and shape are no doubt desirable, but texture and quality are absolutely necessary. When the udder is soft and pliable, capable of great extension when full and of corresponding contraction when emptj, and covered with a coat of fine, silky hair, there is evidence of both quality and texture. Another important fact for the young tarmer to remember in the selection of a milk cow, and one which bas to do with the size and shape of the udder, though not connected with it, is this: Cows which are long and level from the hip bone to the pin bene have long udders, attached behind and extending well forward along the belly. Cows which are short in this dimension have short, pendant udders, and those which have sloping hind quarters will nave sloping udders, with the front teats high up and or little use. as the back teats will give nearly all the milk. iht so-called milk veins, whicti excend forward from the udder on the abdomen of the cow, are not milk veins at all, but blood veins. This fact does uot detract from their value in judging the quality of the cow, as their size, lengtn and convolutions serve to determine the quantity of blood which flows through the udder. Leading forward from the udder, these veins terminate in so-called milk weWs, which are orifices in the abdominal wall whera the veins re-entev the bodv The size of both the veins and milk wells is large in high-producing cows and small in those of smaller production. The voms are also very crooked and tortuous in large milkers and small in those of less pxoduction. Because of the close relationship between the blood supply and the amount of milk produced, the size and convolutions of the milk veins is accepted as a very excellent index of the producing capacity of the cow. Sometimes these veins extend as far forward as the shoulder and have numerous branches and wells. At other times they are small and short, with small wells —a sure indication of a poor producer. With heavy milkers, the udder is enlarged .and hot just before calving, and a swelling may extend forward along the abdomen, but this condition need not cause any anxiety. In heifers, at their first calving, the swelling is caused by the large quantity of blood required for the proper performance of its functions and the veins not being open and prepared for the return of blood. A certain amount of blockage occurs, which, in the course of 'a few days, disappears as the veins gradu ally onen up and tho blood returns through its natural course.