Water for Dairy Cows.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 July 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

Water for Dairy Cows.

The necessity for seeing that dairy cows have available an ample supply of clean drinking water which edit bd approached by a clean track cannot be too greatly stressed. Replying to a question at the NJS.A. conference at Palmerston North on Friday Professor W. Riddet, Director of the Dairy Research Institute, made it clear that it was not the direct effect of drinking swampy water that caused the milk to trouble. With the cow going through the swamps to get at the water, however, germs got on the udder and teats and these got inter the milk and affected it. Mud, too, is another very serious problem on every dairy farm, the yards and the tracks approaching them being in some cases a sea of mud. Not only are the cow’s udders and teats affected by the mud but there is also the danger of straining the cows. Farmers realise the difficulty they are up against, and they are in most cases doing what they can to make conditions round the shed as clean as possible, and for that purpose they require cement at as reasonable a price as possible. Gateways form a more difficult problem, especially on wet flat country where there is no metal available., Where there is plenty of metal and good drainage there is little trouble.

Keeping Qualities of Butter. An interesting exhibit at the national dairy conference last week was a package of butter containing five pound pats of butter wrapped in a special experimental tinfoil wrapping. The butter which was made by the Cambridge Dairy Company 18 months ago, had been on a trip to England and back, returning in time fot last year’s N.D.A. conference at New Plymouth. Since then it had been held in the Moturoa freezing- stores. An examination of the butter showed that it was only now commencing to go slightly “off,” thus showing the efficacy of the wrapping.

Eliminating Stock Disease. Annually the Americans hold a big national live stock show, called the Pacific International Livestock Exposition. This year the management has taken a bold stand in support of the national endeavour to eliminate dairy cattle disease. It is requiring all herds competing to be free of infectious abortion. All animals must be accompanied by a certificate issued by an approved veterinary laboratory showing that the animal has been tested and is free of the disease. New Zealand Cheese Market.

Very interesting statistics have been published by the Milk Marketing Board of England in regard to cheese importations in Britain. These show that New Zealand supplies more than half tire cheese Britain imports, and that Canada, which formerly supplied the bulk of Britain’s imports, now only supplies a third of the quantity this country supplies. For the period 1931-4 New Zealand supplied 64.80 per cent, of the imports, Canada 21.00, Australia 2.97, and other countries 10.33 per cent.