HERD-TESTING

Waipa Post, Volume 31, Issue 1765, 1 June 1926, Page 5

HERD-TESTING

Sir, —Iri a recent, article you dealt with the figures of the various grours of the New Zealand Co-operative Herdtesting Association in a very informative manner, considering the lack of information at your hand, assuming as I do that the figures supplied by the were a duplicate of those appearing in the Dairyfarmer. Your reference also to the advantages of eliminating scrub bulls and “dud” cows was helpful towards herd improvement, but one aspect you appear to have overlooked. I regard it as a most important "hase of dairying work—the proper feeding of cows. It can be s'hown that our dairy herds are not fed up to their highest yielding capacity, but to state that we should continue to feed cows whose records are unknown, in preference to purebred whose records are known, is wrong. Take the case of two cows, one a purebred with a 4.5 test, and a dud at 3. If each is giving the same amount of milk and receiving the same feed, then surely the higher testing cow is the more efficient producer. Feeding and breeding go hand in hand, and, the use of the scales In recording milk weights is the only safe guide for rationing. A poor cow may be made to yield up to its limit by proper feeding, hut all the feeding in the world won’t make a 3 test cow into a 4.4 one. How much more satisfactory would it be then to feed up a high testing cow? In progressive dairying countries milk-testing and recording rationing by yield and breeding are the principles which have been employed to ensure success. Not until we adopt similar, means can the production from dairy farming be radically increased. In the. near future there will te an opportunity for farmers to join a co-operative herd-testing assoc/ation in this district, and it is hoped that all herd owners will seize the opportunity and give support to an undertaking which will not only increase materially t'he wealth of this district, but add to our national prosperity.—l am, etc., G.J.M.