FARM NOTES.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16625, 22 October 1925, Page 8

FARM NOTES.

COST OF HERD TESTING. TAIELII FARMER’S OPINION. TOO MUCH ADDED EXPENSE. When asked the other day it he tested his herd a, Taieri dairy farmer replied with an emphatic “No.’’ t His overhead expenses, he said, were too heavy for him to consider it. The one tiling in dairy that remained constant was the cost of production, which was always high, while the fluctuations of .the Tooley Street markets kept everyone guessing as to the prices of produce. With such a position to contend with, he was not prepared to involve additional outlay by testing his cows.

To this it may be replied that considering the results obtained from herd testing any initial cost is negligible. In Taranaki, where testing is now universal, the cost to the farmer is next to nothing. A few dozen bottles and a box in which to cany them are sold to the supplier by the dairy factory, where the monthly testing is carried out by Government officials. There is no charge made on dairy farmers for the testing of their herds. - In the shed, perhaps, a few additions are necessary, but even the requisite bucket apparatus for testing machinemilked herds is very cheap. True, a little time is spent each month in, the work, but for the two, or perhaps three, days each monh during which weights and samples are taken an hour or two only is taken from the working time on the farm. To start systematic testing, there, costs little.

Of course, other things crop up which make the system an expensive one for a start. For instance, one dairy farmer a few miles out of Hawera (Taranaki) when he commenced testing his herd of 242 cows, of all sorts and sizes, .and sired by a hybrid bull, found that if he were going to continue with the work his whole herd and the management of his farm would have to undergo some very radil cal changes. Each month the figures for the period were posted up on the factoiy notice board, and whereas previously ho had been accounted one of the most successful of the company’s suppliers, his monthly returns showed that for the vast amount of work expended on such a large herd he was barely making wages. His volume of milk was always large, and the four horses required to draw his morning load ’P the flush season gave an impression of gTf-at He Soon found, however, that pasture aiy- ne I was insufficient fur any Least to give profitable returns. Two-thirds of a cow’s daily consumption is required for her own needs, and the other, third goes to milk. Pasture alone does little' more than suffice for the needs of the animal’s, constitution. Still the growing 0? 20 iUU'es of swede turnips and ’soft tUV-Ulps and the painstaking cultivation of several stands of lucerne failed to increase the butter-fat returns perceptibly. The herd sires, which for seasons had fathered the scraggy brutes that ate the feed of two cows and did not give the milk of one were then got rid of and the herd judiciously culled. Even the most unpractical farmer could not fail to recognise the facts as borne out by the figures on the monthly list. Changes had to be made,-and money had to be spent, but with the prices realised by the sale of the old bulls and cull cows and the increased milk cheque accompanying a rise in test from 3.5 to 4.2 this farmer made up the cost of the new cows and bulls and the expenses of testing paraphernalia in five months and a half. Testing certainly leads to expense, hut the cost was the means of a great increase, in rroduction, and to the farmer, whether in production, dairying, wool-growing, or crop-raising, that is the most important item in the world. With production at its highest little fear need he entertained com cerning prices. The little things such as a few hours a month spent in testing, the culling of cows which eat more feed than is paid for hv returns, find.a judicious selection of,,feed make the only thing in the farmer’s calendar —his cheque—well worth while.