CALF-MARKING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20110, 31 March 1928, Page 24 (Supplement)

CALF-MARKING

HIGHER PRODUCERS System Will Have Far-reaching Effect on Dominion Dairying At the recent Field Day and demonstration of the Wanganui Cattle Club reference was made to the system of calf-marking which iis now being carried out by eight herd testing associations. The term “calf-marking” applies to a system of ear-tattooing which provides permanent indentification of heifer calves sired by registered purebred bulls from cows tested for yield and, proved profitable butter-fat producers.

In this country the system was inaugurated by the New Zealand Cooperative Herd Testing Association, operating in the Auckland district, 305 calves being marked in 1925-26, the first year of operation.

Statistics showing the total number of calves marked in the Dominion last spring are not available, but the New Zealand Co-operative Herd Testing Association advises that it registered some four thousand calves.

As already indicated, the marking is carried out by means of a perforated stained tattoo in the ear, and is confined to heifer calves. The calf must have been sired by a registered purebred bull and the dam must have produced, in a lactation period of not more than 305 days, a certain minimum butter-fat requirement according to age. For a first calver the standard is set at 250 lbs., for a second-calver 275 lbs., and for a third-calver or older animal 3001bs. In addition, the dam must be branded or otherwise identifiable under the rules of and in a manner satisfactory to the association. For purposes of calf-mark-ing only heifer calves from dams that have actually been tested by certain herd-testing groups are registered. Particulars of calves qualifying under the rules of the association are entered in a register and a certificate is issued. The actual system of marking may be outlined as follows: A general index letter —“T”—is the registered mark of the Dominion Group Herd Testing Federation. This index mark, of course, remains permanent. The index mark is followed by a letter which indicates the dairying season in which the calf was born, thus providing a key

to age. This age Or year letter Is followed by the registration number or the calf in the Heifer Calf Register. Thus, for instance, “T B 555” would indicate that the calf so marked was number 555 in the register of the Dominion Group Herd Testing Federation for the year 1926-27.

The influence of calf-marking properly carried out should ultimately be far-reaching and of great assistance to the dairy industry. It provides a means

of identifyng calves with more or less proved butter-fat backing, and, in districts where calf-marking is in operation, distinguishes what should be a profitable producer and useful herdbuilder from the lower-yielding animal. Tn this way it should steadily, but surely and automatically, tend to solve the cull-cow problem which has exercised the minds of dairymen for many years. Most of the earlier suggested methods for solving this problem were along the line of branding the cull cow. It would seem, however, that the marking of the good cow is a much more satisfactory process than the branding of the poor one. An unbranded beast may be accepted as an unknown quantity, but a heifer marked under the calf-marking system carries the mark of potential quality, identifying its bearer as the product of a purebred sire and a dam which has proved herself a capable butter-fat producer.

In any such system as this there are sure to be many examples of undesirable atavism—throw-backs to inferior types and inferior producers—but. as the result, of calf-marking, our average dairy cow should normally improve .vith each succeeding generation.