THE HERD

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18927, 22 April 1933, Page 19 (Supplement)

THE HERD

Bull’s Transmitting Power. One of the most serious problems is to secure a herd sire that will definitely raise the productive capacity of the herd. The surest means of ascertaining a bull’s power in Ibis connection is a knowledge of the milking capacity of ills daughters, hut this means keeping a bull to maturity. And in the purchase of a hull it is very seldom I hat a proved animal •can he obtained. One is forced to consider the immature sire. Records of the female ancestry are the best, guide, and whom them are many suc-

cessive records for the more immediate ancestors all the better, but it is always well lo personally inspect the dam of the bull. The importance of a knowledge of wliat the female ancestors have done cannot he over estimated. The host test to prove the need of this knowledge was made in America where tho Department of

Agriculture tested the transmission capacity of more than a thousand bulls of tested herds comparing the production of daughters' and dams. This showed a third of the bulls actually reduced milk production, a third did not sensibly decrease or inproduction while only one third really increased production. It would be interesting to have a similar investigation made in this country. To get such information and publish it for the benefit of farmers in general would be of the greatest value, as it would suggest which strains were definitely improving production and which were not; it would in fact initiate a real demand for the right blood and thereby lead to the elimination of strains which should be culled from our pedigree herds. The most interesting attempt made to arrive at a method of estimating the transmitting power of bulls is the system adopted by the proprietors of the “Mount-Hope Farm,” in America, a system which is readily spreading, •its adoption being advocated by leading men both in Britain and Australia. The observations made on the farm with a large number of animals have shown that the transmitting ability of a bull is not represented exactly toy the mean between the average production of its .daughters and its dam but that it Is above the lower milk production by about 7-10 of the difference and above the lower butter fat production by about 4-10 of the difference. As a result of these observations the Mount Hope Index has been established to express the transmitting ability of the bull.

The Big Weakness. While credit must toe given to the breeders of pedigree stock that they have spent large sums of money in importing and purchasing tne best available breeding animals, the fact must -be admitted that they have failed and failed badly in one respect. They have failed to eliminate from their herds and the herd books of their societies the low-producing animals. Thus individual animals have been bred and passed on to others which have actually lowered production and have proved a thorougnly bad advertlsment for pedigree stock. Strains have also been retained and boosted the members of which have proved less profitable In ordinary herds than have grade cattle. In fact, generation after generation purebred animals have been bred from and distributed —sold on their looks — which have been pure only for low producing ability. This bad state of affairs has been actually encouraged under the semi-offloial system of testing which allows a man to test only a few selected cows, when it is more important to the industry and to the country that the low producing pedigree animals and the low producing strains should be known. The testing of pedigree dairy stock will never be placed on a satisfactory footing till every member of the herd is tested and the test 'figures for every animal published for general information.

At the Head of the Procession.

“The men who will be at the head of the procession with the best herds when we come out of this depression," says an American cow-testing report, “will be those who are testing now and who will test continuously." This is well said. We might add that the men who will actually lead the procession are those who, not only-test continuously, but who will take full advantage of their test figures, use hulls having good'bvtter-fat blood and of great constitution and who do the calves from their best cows well from the first, for these men realise that disease resistance is' just as important as heavy production. When better prices rule, as they must, these men will be able to take full advantage O'f them. A Fine Competition. There is a competition in connection with the London Dairy Show which is the best tiling of the kind that has como under our notice. It is the Robert Mend Challenge Shield, and is awarded to the owner-breeder of four animals, the progeny of one bull, which together give the highest yield of butter-l'at in a lactation. The last winner was Mr J. -Cochrane, an Ayrshire breeder of Dumfries-shire. The bull was Xetherton Prosperity and four of his daughters averaged 8,860 ib of-4.20 per cent milk in fifty weeks, one of them giving 1 i,G-i0 lb of 4.40 per cent milk in fifty-four weeks. Two of the four daughters of the bull have to be exhibited at London Dairy Show. The two -shown were heifers. One averaged 49.4 lb of 4.34 per cent milk each day at the show and the oilier 37.6 lb of -1.07 per cent. milk. A competition like this is worth Hie promoting and worth the winning. It certainly emphasises the importance of the proved bull, ttie most valuable animal in the world t. 1 - day.