LIVE STOCK AND THE FARM

Southland Times, Issue 21820, 24 September 1932, Page 12

LIVE STOCK AND THE FARM

ON THE LAND NOTES FOR THE MONTH. (By ‘‘Working Farmer.”)

Lambing Is progressing very satisfactorily, weather conditions up till the time of writing being ideal. Twin lambs are very plentiful and occasional triplets are .■yriving. Grass is somewhat slow in ccfeiing away but it is only an optimist who would expect much of a sward in September. Paddocks which are to be cut for hay should be closed now but the trouble is that they are all needed for stock at this time. It is becoming realized more each year that late cutting, besides providing hay of less feeding value, is injurious to the pasture. In trials in Scotland it was found that when the first growth was saved for hay, and the crop cut before the flowering stage of ryegrass, very litktle harm was done to the permanency of the pasture. The hay which is cut at this stage is more difficult to save and may not bulk quite so large, but the quality is excellent and the feeding value higher than if cut later. Another advantage in early cutting is in the aftermath which, through making a quick recovery, provides good fresh feed at a time when the other pastures are getting past their best. Several complaints have been made of losses among the ewe flock through anti-partum paralysis and now. that lambing has become general it is impossible to exercise the flock. However, this trouble will soon be over and the next “visitation” will probably be pulpy kidney which is usually at the peak about the middle of October. For this trouble some farmers give daily exercise by stirring up the flock for half an hour morning and evening, and some yard ewes and lambs in a wirenetting enclosure for 24 hours in an endeavour to check the death rate.. It is very questionable whether anything is gained by either practice if allowance is made for the loss of condition sustained by the majority in an endeavour to save the few. Early tailing at about two weeks old gives the lambs a slight check at a time when they seem to be most susceptible to this trouble and may help to present losses. In any case the lambs have to be tailed sooner or later and as tailing always causes. a certain amount of lost condition, it is just as ■well to arrange that loss for the time it may do some good.

First Grade Milk. In an address to factory managers at Pa tea, Mr Veale dealt with the difficulty attending the keeping of the evening’s milk up to first grade quality. He stated that when differential payments became the rule, suppliers would be keen to know why their milk was not the finest. Briefly, the main idea is to keep impurities out of the milk and then by cooling and keeping the milk cool to retard the activities of bacteria. Ideal temperatures for night were 50 degrees and lower, although any temperature up to 60 degrees did not produce bacteria to any great extent. From 60 to 70 degrees, any little contamination would have its effect. But above 70deg. the supplier would have the greatest difficulty in rising above second grade. A farmer might have excellent equipment, shed, and clean surroundings, but his work would be all for naught if he did not obtain an adequate drop in temperature for the cooling of the milk.

Milk For Cheesemaking. The Rahotu Dairy Factory of Taranaki has decided to adopt during the coming season the method of payment for milk for cheesemaking as recommended by Mr P. O. Veale. Under this system the testing of milk for its butterfat content is retained, but the milk is also tested for casein and the ratio of casein is then determined for each supplier. The ratio of fat to casein for the whole factory is worked out and payment made accordingly. The Dual Purpose Cow.

The only dual purpose cow which is any use to the dairyman is one which is good for either a butter or cheese factory, or both. It is claimed for some breeds that when the cow becomes useless as a butterfat producer, she will make a fine body of beef or that the male calves make good fattening bullocks. Actually, the best thing that can be said of those breeds is that they are pleasant to behold and are usually good tempered, which are both very nice attributes, but when it comes down to £ s. d. it is butterfat production that counts, and if one can get a cow that will average in the vicinity of 4001 b. of fat for a few years, they need not worry if she has no body at all at the end of her dairying career. McClusky says, “Don't marry for money, but you need’na let it be any hindrance.” The same thing applies to dairy cows. There is no objection to buying a dual purpose cow so long as she delivers the goods, i.e., butterfat, but to buy her because she will provide a good body of beef or breed good fattening steers is another thing. 'The chief requirements of a dairy cow are butterfat backing and a good constitution • and tie first without the latter is like Faith without Works. There are breeders who have concentrated on high production irrespective of constitution and put up some very fine records, but it is actually a more difficult task to recover lost ground in the matter of constitution than it is in production. It is rather difficult to visualize the ideal dual purpose cow as regards beef and butterfat. The ideal beef type has a broad, level back, well-sprung ribs and deep and thick hams. When this carcass is hung in the butcher’s shop it provides the maximum of sirloin roast, rump steak, etc., which are the valuable cuts and make it desirable from the retailers’ viewpoint. The ideal dairy type on the other hand has been described as the double wedge which means that from a fine head and long tapering neck the body gradually becomes deeper towards the back end. Whereas, with the beef breed, it is desirable that the ribs spring directly from the backbone, in the true dairy type, the spring of the ribs should be gradual but increasing in width well towards the lower end of the rib which provides for plenty of food accommodation and makes for the second wedge in the shape of the animal. In the beef breed a well filled crutch is the ideal and with the dairy animal this is objectionable as it leaves no room for a Well-shaped milk vessel. It is admitted that certain cows of a beef breed have

been high milk producers, but they are the exception rather than the rule and when a dairyman sets out to build up a herd of high producers he is safer to follow the rule than the exception. There are so many “itises” and other factors working against him that the 3001 b. average takes a lot of getting even when good judgement is exercised. Constitution.—This is somewhat difficult to define as one is inclined to go by the general appearance of the animal. A deep hollow above the brisket and behind the shoulder is to be avoided as this denotes limited heart space and the engine must have room to work. A hard, tight skin with dry, hard hair is a feature of the unthrifty animal and there is often a pinched look about tnt face. A blotchy, bfue appearance under any patches of white and dung on the hocks are also features of low vitality. Naturally, an animal in low condition, due to insufficient food, may appear to exhibit some of the above symptoms, but there is something about lack of constitution which is apparent whether the animal be well fed or ill-fed. The Rule of the Road.

When formulating new rules of the road it is very necessary that explicit direction be given. Under the old rules, on meeting, one automatically swerved to the left and in overtaking and passing, to the right. It has become second nature to do so, and in an emergency, the hands and feet act so quickly in concert with the eye that one wonders at the speed of the transmission of thought. In changing rules, this factor, or speeding of the faculties, which was the prime cause of the prevention of acoidents, is liable to be our undoing, unless the new course to be adopted is made very clear. Pedestrians are being advised to walk on the right-hand side of the road, but are any instructions being issued to motorists as to how to act? One would naturally infer that the overtaking motorist should pass on the pedestrians’ left side but under the present law the motorist would probably be involved in trouble if the pedestrian became rattle-headed and dived for the left side of the road. Then again when a motorist is travelling along the left side of the road and he comes face to face with a pedestrian, what happens? Does the pedestrian take the middle of the road or dive into the grass? (I would), or docs the motorist in defiance of his ingrained instincts have to swing to the right? The two instances given are, or should be, the simplest of the many situations which may arise. For instance, there is the possibility of the pedestrian being confronted with glaring . headlights, both fore and aft, and again the safest place for him is on the grass or in the nearest paddock. On being confronted with any of these situations one would naturally follow the dictates of common sense which pointed to the avoidance of accidents, but there must be a right and a wrong procedure conforming with the rules of the road, and in these days of speed any alterations to existing rules should be widely broadcast so that “ships that pass in the night” may not run foul of one another.

Cow Troubles. A lecture and demonstration given on the farm of Mr R. Dawson, near Papatoetoe, by Mr Thedens, veterinary practitioner and manager of “Bovisan Proprietary” in Auckland, drew the very large attendance of some 400 farmers. Mr Thedens spoke on sterility, abortion and mammitis and claimed that there was an annual loss of 25 per cent, in the dairy herds throughout New Zealand through cows not getting in calf, through cows slipping their calves, or through mammitis. The Year Book gives the number of dairy cows as 1,600,000 so that according to the above estimate, some 400,000 cows are “passengers” and this means, at the moderate estimate of £lO for the annual production of each cow, a very considerable loss. Not only that but the depreciation in value of these cows from first class dairy cows valued at from £8 unwards to present cull values of less than 20/-, means another huge loss. Mr Thedens’ estimate of the percentage of the trouble may be on the high side but it is not so wide of the mark as one would be inclined to think at first glance. Most dairymen know that in ordinary years it requires the addition of at least 10 heifers each year to keep a herd of 50 cows up to standard and that in a year when an epidemic of one of the above troubles is encountered a much greater loss is incurred. Mr Thedens said that every cow producing below a certain amount of butterfat per annum should be classed as a “dud” cow by the Herd-testing Association. Failures to breed or cows affected by an incurable form of mamitis should also be branded as “duds.” These should be speyed and branded with a definite mark which would be known throughout New Zealand. The speaker gave a talk on speying, using a blackboard to illustrate the points he wished to emphasize and later demonstrated by operating on a cow before his audience. There are cows sold at every public sale as dairy cows and quite a number of these could not rear a decent calf, yet they are being bought to build up some poor unfortunate’s herd. It is invariably the poor man who buys them and just as certainly they will keep him poor. Speying is not a very complicated operation so long as strict cleanliness is observed but when, by arranging for a group of 20 or 30 cows in a district, a competent operator can be got to do the lot at a cost of 1/6 or 2/- per head, it is scarcely advisable for the amateur to incur the risk of loss. The main thing is to get them speyed and sent where they will do most good instead of passing them on to the one,,who is mug enough to buy them.

The Pig. In his own inimitable and breezy way “Mephistopeles” gives an article in the Dairyman on the pig, and after describing the various kinds of pigs, and the wise and otherwise methods of treating them, he says: “If you treat him a sort of reasonably, he will put one one pound avoidupois daily, and if he receives a full sufficiency by way of victuals and has the apportunity of living in comfortable quarters he will increase his live weight by 21b. per day or even more. In the matter of the reproduction of his species the pig laughs at birth control, and a lady pig who knows her job, will deliver the goods to the tune of a dozen or so every six months. If you consider ma-

ternity one of the beautiful things in life, it would be hard to find a prettier sight than a nice litter of piglets a week or two old, having breakfast where the mother is parked in bright, clean straw and the lacteal fluid is flowing in abundance.” The same writer contends that the farmer who separates his milk can find no more profitable means of using the skim milk—after rearing sufficient heifer calves for herd replacement—than by feeding it to pigs but states that the addition of grain in some form will not only make the skim milk go much further, but that the pigs will thrive better and put on weight more quickly. The addition of grain will also considerably reduce loss later when frying the bacon. Feeding Lambs. Many people have very little success in the rearing of motherless lambs, while others whom they think have far less brains, apparently can make no mistakes. The delucion that cow milk requires to be watered down is responsible for most of the trouble and carelessness and perhaps uncleanliness for most of the balance. As a general rule a lamb has only to be fed for one or two days before an opportunity occurs to graft him on to a ewe which has lost her lamb and in these cases the bottle and teat are the best means of feeding, as the lamb retains the inclination to suck. Where it is intended to keep the lamb as a pet, it is better to train him to drink out of a bowl as being less trouble in the long run. There are rubber teats on the market, specially made for lamb feeding, but the baby’s teat is better and more natural, only that the aperture should be enlarged to allow of the lamb making more speed at feeding time. The milk should be given at blood heat and this is easily judged by pouring a drop on the back of the hand. A cup of new milk can be put in the lamb’s bottle and this placed in a billy of warm water till warm enough. One cup-full is enough at the start and it is better not to overfeed. A hungry feeder is usually a healthy lamb.