PROGENY TEST

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20422, 12 February 1938, Page 22 (Supplement)

PROGENY TEST

ONLY TEST OF WORTH VALUE OF HERD SIRES The only sure and certain test of the worth of any animal as a breeder is found in the actual performance of that animal’s progeny. The idea stated here is not a new discovery, but instances where it is put into practice in dairy farming in this country are rare. Essential point is that it is not possible to tell with any certainly by looking at a cow, for example, or its pedigree, whether the heifers from that cow will be good milkers, nor does the fact that the cow herself is a superior milker ensure or prove that her heifers will be superior milkers. They may be or they may be not. The only way to be sure about this is to try them. Again, the fact that a bull’s dam made a great record from the butterfat and yield point of view, does not ensure that his daughters will be superior milkers. We can only know whether he possesses the ability to transmit dairy productivity by getting the actual record from some of his daughters. If these records are good the breeding of the bull is presumptively high. At any rate, we know in that case, that he is not lowering the average quality of the herd. (Continued in next column)

Nothing else can furnish the sure and certain kind of information which the actual progeny test ensures. The practical application of the information obtained from the progeny test requires that stock bulls be kept to a greater age than is usually the case. Under ordinary conditions of herd management, bulls are used for two or three years, and fattened for slaughter when three or four years old; but in order to make use of progeny test information, the bull must be alive and in breeding after his progeny have come into milk. To attain this end, the stock bull in a dairy herd must be kept in breeding condition until four or five years old. There are obvious difficulties in this practice, but a study of existing conditions, contrasting with the value of a proved sire emphasises the need for overcoming these difficulties.