ABOUT DAIRY COWS

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6545, 18 November 1924, Page 5

ABOUT DAIRY COWS

QUICK v. SLOW MILKING Dr. C. Crowther, of the Harper- A! Adams College, in an instructive address to the Shropshire (Eng.) Chamber of Agriculture on the feeding and management of milking cows, detailed the foods necessary for the maintenance of a cow, and also for the production of a gallon of milk (says the Dairy). Taking a 10001 b weight animal as a basis, a dry cow required 61b of digestible albuminoids. Foe|| ? >||| dry cow in calf he would increase | the starch values by lib, and the albuminoids by a third of a pound. In the case of a cow in milk, 2£lb of starch values, which should contain 0.61 b of albuminoids, should be added for each gallon of milk produced. Milk also contained lime and phosphoric adid; but on ordinary rations he did not think any serious risk would be run of keeping the cow short of lime until they get into the region of high yields. There were six main points to be kept in mind: (1) The ration must be a bulky one; (2) the amount of albuminoids; (3) the palatability of the material; (4) any possible effect of ' the food .on the produce; (5) any _■<; cumulative effect of the food on the J eow; (6) the cost Of. the food. ' Figures as to the remarkable difference in the milk of a cow when milked by an expert and a novice were given by Dr. Crowther, who A; said the results of tests he made in 1904 were so extraordinary that he had never dared to publish them. Four cows were milked on alternate days by an expert milker and a no- ;\j£ vice. .One cow, on the days she was milked by an expert, averaged 11.31 b a day, but when milked by a novice she only averaged 9.41 b. The average A: proportion of fht obtained by the 1 expert was 4.2 per cent., against 2.5 per cent, by the novice. In the other cows the difference in the yields was equally striking. In later experiments he found the great importance of quick milking against slow milking, and obtained most extraordinary results, especially in the amount of fat. In one experiment he found that by quick milking v;' 10 pei* -cent, more milk and 30 per - cent, more fSKjyere obtained. N Observations of that kind, he said, brought out that skilful milking was almost fhe key to the situation. It was fitmise spending a lot of time and. \ money "in getting good cows and devising • scientific rations unless they had efficient milking. A bad milker would do more harqi by ’his clumsy and incorrect methods of milking than tlfe farmer would by ffeglecting scientific feeding.