VALUE OF TESTING

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1935, Page 24 (Supplement)

VALUE OF TESTING

TRIAL IN AUSTRALIA /production and appearance. All experience goes io show that it is futile to speak of the productive ability of a dairy cow, except as bv her test. When herd-recording was farmers that they could tell what their cows were doing without putting them Ser record, merely by relymg on outward appearances, such as body, foSon,X size of the mij says an Australian writer. There were those who knew the quality of nuh and size and shape of the' €SCUt jJ c f 5 ?? bv its colour, and others who could tell by its feel. The systems of judging were many and diverse. To settle the matter definitely the New South Wales Department of Agriculture recently arranged that when the recorders went their first rounds, members were to pick out on Jk eir 1 judgment the three, best and three worst cows in their herds, and at the conclusion of the years testing their selections were to be compared with the actual returns obtained as shown by the Babcock test . _ •Each member put his pick down on paper' and handed it over to the tester. The results convinced all concerned that they were wrong In their contentions; the Babcock won all along the line, in not one case was an owner able to pick out without error his worst and best The majority were right out in their reckoning. In some cases those picked out as the worst proved to be among the highest yielders. One thought so much of. a cow that he had paid a fancy price for her and brought • her at considerable expense some 200 miles to his farm on the Tweed. He thought her the best cow on that river, and certainly by appearance she was a top-notcher. She was first recorded sue week after calving and gave one halfpound of butter for the twenty-four hours’ milking, the test being 1.9 per cent. fat. She was in good health and condition and feed was plentiful. The following month she just exceeded a quarter of a pound of butter for the day. The third month’s test showed the days’ production to be under a quarter of a pound. She gave a fair quantity of milk, but there was too little fat in it. She was soon culled out.