BETTER COWS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20127, 21 April 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

BETTER COWS

IMPROVEMENT OF BULLS The ultimate goal of the bull association is better cows. The co-opeft-tivg dairy bull association is a farmersorganisation whose chief purpose is the breeding of better dairy cows through the joint ownership and systematic exchange of prepotent purebred dairy bulls of high-producing ancestry. The first bull association in the Fnite-d States was organised in Michigan in 1908. There arc now 248 bull associations in 33 States.

A study of the records of the daugh tors of bull association bulls showed an average yearly mature production of 80711 b milk anil ,3421 b fat. In milk production the daughters excelled the dams by .13.5 per cent, and in butterfat production by 14.4 per cent.

Some of the sires are very outstanding. One sire was mated with cows having an average yearly milk production of 90001 b and an average yearly butter-fat production of 34711), yet his seven daughters from these cows excelled their dams by 57 per cent, in milk production and by 44 per cent, in production of butter-fat. In many localities the banks are helping to finance the purchase of Letter dairy sires.

Through the system of transferring bulls from block to block, the bull association makes it possible to keep all proved bulls as long as they live or are fit for service.

The typical bull association consists of five blocks to each of which one bull is assigned. All the Dulls are owned by the association. In a bull association the bulls must all be of the same breed.

Much progress has been mad«e by selecting bulls on the records of their dams and grand-dams. The most rapid progress cannot come until dairy sirfs are selected on the production records of their daughters.