BEEF AND DAIRY CATTLE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1424, 8 November 1923, Page 6

BEEF AND DAIRY CATTLE.

THE CHIEF DIFFERENCES

In the beef animal and the dairy cow the following differences in conformation are decidedly noticeable. While the beef breeds are blocky or rectangular in shape, the dairy breeds are angular or wedge-shaped. The body of the beef animal is low set, smooth, and the lines (top and bottom as well as the sides) are more or less parallel.

The choice cuts of beef are along the back and in the hindquarters; so for this reason the beef animal has a broad, well-fleshed back, and smooth, well-filled heavy hindquarters.

The chief function of a dairy cow that is looked for is the production of large quantities of milk. To do this she must have a strong constitution, represented by thickness through the chest, hut, since nature does not call upon her to produce flesh in large quantities, she is not so broad across the hack. In fact, the dairy cow should be rather thin on top, and so it is that the wedge shape is observed when one looks down upon the shoulder and chest. The milk is manufactured in the middle and hindmost portions, and naturally enough this is where the greatest development is; so we observe another wedge when we view the dairy cow from either end. The top of the hindquarters must be wide, or there would not be ample room for udder attachments below, and this is one reason why another wedge-shaped conformation is seen when looking downwards over the hindquarters.

The typical dairy cow should not be by any means a thin, bony, illformed specimen. In general conformation she is what may be termed "angular,” but with it all she has style, carriage, symmetry and plenty of flesh to make her a handsome animal. By comparison, she may be a little longer in the legs than a typey beef cow, a little longer and thinner in the neck, and a trifle more capacious in the middle.

The beef type of cow, as a rule, has only moderate udder developmentwhile the ideal dairy cow has a large udder, long, prominent and tortuous milk veins and well defined milk wells. The so-called milk veins are the channels on the lower part of the abdomen through which the venous blood travels between the udder and the heart, while the milk wells are the openings at that lower part of the abdomen through which these veins enter the body.