SEMI-OFFICIAL TESTING.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume VI, Issue 1, 15 January 1913, Page 58

SEMI-OFFICIAL TESTING.

W. M. Singleton.

The semi-official testing of purebred dairy cows by the Dairy-produce Division has been well supported for this, its first season. With the general extension of association cow-testing among ordinary milkingherds the demand for purebred bulls of good milking- has become accentuated, and to enable breeders to place authentic records before intending .purchasers the obtaining of semi-official yearly records became a necessity.

■ Every effort has been made to place these records above suspicion, and breeders have met the Division very heartily in this respect. The Holstein-Friesian and Jersey breeders have adopted the system, and there are now entered in test for semi-official certificate 123 Holsteins and 106 Jerseys. A number have been entered and have been withdrawn from competing for certificate, owing to. their not meeting the requirement of having dropped a calf within fifteen months previous to the commencement of the test. For this first. season a number of these cows are being tested, and the owners will be given a signed statement of the cows’ production, but no semi-official certificate will be available, neither can their names be included in the list of cows having qualified. In all, over two hundred and fifty cows are in yearly test; their daily weights of milk being recorded by the owners and checked by the officers of the Dairy-produce Division, who also make the monthly fat-determinations.

The milking-herds of the experimental farms are being submitted to the same checking and testing by this Division as are other purebred cows under semi-official test. With these the total number of cows under this yearly test will this season exceed three hundred. The figures obtained will be of great benefit to all concerned, and especially to the dairy-farmer seeking to purchase a purebred bull with a performance pedigree. It will also benefit the breeders, for a dairyman does not object to paying more for an animal backed by a good authentic yearly, butter-fat record.

In Denmark a bull is regarded as useless for breeding purposes if he does not possess a milking pedigree, both on the side of the . dam and of the sire, for generations back.