TAINTED MILK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 4

TAINTED MILK.

REDUCING QUALITY OF PRODUCE. A LITTLE CARE, A LITTLE THOUGHT. How many dairymen sacrifice purity of milk or cream, for quantity? How many realise that the injudicious feeding of certain supplementary crops, though perhaps resulting in a temporary increase in the flow of milk, actually greatly reduces the sweetness and purity of the supply? This is a serious question in many districts, and one that is the subject of considerable vigilance on the part of all dairy factory managers and butter makers. What farmers must realise about the marketing of produce is the fact that boosting values are no good. Consistent quality in produce, and economical produi on are the factors which will ensure success much more certainly than the fluctuations of a market and the vain hones of a boom period. Tainted milk makes purity impossible, and by reason of that fact has a marked influence on the economy of production. The question of tainted milk is one that can easily be overlooked in an attempt to push production as far as quantity is concerned, neglecting an even more important factor —purity. Bad .flavours must result in inferior produce. Of course, everybody knows the effect of rape and turnips in milk, but there are other feeds which have a deleterious effect in milk. Lucerne, though not as seriotts a menace as either of the already mentioned crops, leaves a distinct odour which must detract from qiiality. However the judicious feeding off of lucerne should obviate all trouble. Cows must be introduced to the food gradually, say, for half an hour daily, the period increasing as the feeding progresses. At the end of a week the cows should be left almost to their own devices in the lucerne stand without any very pronounced odours. A green paddock as a run off to the lucerne is Invaluable. The hand feeding of lucerne is perhaps the safer method, but even hero the thoughtless can err. If too great a quantity of the crop is cut for one feeding it is not an unusual practice to stack the surplus into cocks for future use. In particularly hot weather, or even in wet weather, these cocks ferment quickly, and if fed out in a semi-fermented condition will soon cause trouble, as a . fermented flavour is easily imparted to milk. Great care should be exercised in hand feeding to see that fermented or half fermented food is not supplied to the dairy animals. If fermentation is unavoidable, feed the lucerne to the dry stock. Unclean water is responsible for not a small proportion of the undesirably flavoured milk which finds its way to the dairy factory. Good, copious troughs f, 4' °i clean pure water are all that

ar® required to remedy the trouble in this respect. Dairy animals should not be compelled to quench their thirst in swampy streams or polluted creeks.

Care in these matters, though they seem trivial, will greatly increase the quality of the, milk. This can readily be seen from the fact that in many districts the careful feeding of turnips and rape has been brought i'owb to such a tins art that the milk can be taken to the fact-./ with little fear of rejection. It is true that the cause of the trouble is not so much the food as the feeding of it. Farmers who have realised this and acted on that knowledge have no qualms about using this valuable supplementary fodder. There is one cause of bad flavours, however, which should present no difficulties whatsoever, and that is the handling and treatment of milk in the cowshed at home. When the evening’s milk is left on the stand all night it should be well distributed among the cans available and suitably protected. Birds, cats, and dogs are always on the look-out for carelesslyleft milk cans, and I have frequently gone to stir up the last night’s milk in the morning and found starlings and sparrow's drowned in the can and marks of an animal’s paws on the cans. I think I was never more surprised than when I found a large wild-cat dead in the can, and was still more amazed when the milk was nonchalant! l ' stirred by a dairyman and sent . the factory with the rest. Though it would be hard to throw away such milk, it is a pity that butter and cheese should be manufactured from the milk in which birds and cats have made their last death struggles. The only remedy is to see that the milk is covered in a manner which, while allowing very necessary ventilation, would at least secure it from the lai'ge numbers of prowlers which infest the farmyard.-