PURE-BRED SIRES.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17466, 28 July 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

PURE-BRED SIRES.

A PROFITABLE INVESTMENT. AMERICAN CONTENTION. Only'twenty-five per cent of the bulls at the head of dairy herds in the United States are purebred, yet thousands of purebred dairy bull calves are slaughtered for veal every year because there is no demand for them as breeders. Undoubtedly some of these calves are inferior and ought to be slaughtered, says W. E. Wintermeycr, dairy husbandman of the United States Department of Agriculture, but most of them are far superior to the grade and scrub sires that are now being used in many dairy herds. Many dairymen with small and medium-sized herds, whicli often contain poor cows, say that they cannot afford to own a purebred dairy bull because of the high original cost. In

reality, says Mr Wintermeyer, these men can least afford to own an inferior bull. In a new publication just issued by the Bureau of Dairy Industry', "Purebred Dairy sires," Mr .Wintermeyer quotes figures obtained from the records of dairy-herd-imp.rovement associations in all parts of the United States that show how rapidly a good dairy sire can increase the production of a" herd of average cows. Cows in these herds having an average yearly production of 4.650 pounds of milk and 179 pounds of buttarfat a year and mated to purebred sires, produced daughters that averaged 7607 pounds of milk and 300 pounds of butterfat, a gain in one generation of 2912 pounds of milk and 121 pounds of butterfat per cow. This increase in butterfat production at 2s a pound, is worth about £l2. Mlowing about 25 per cent for the extra feed required for the higher production the value of the net gam per daughter due to the purebred sire would be about £9. A purebred bull would need to sire only a few such daughters to pay for himself, and the in-come would be increased by an amount equal to £9 multiplied by the number of his producing daughters.