COW-TESTING.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume VI, Issue 3, 15 March 1913, Page 308

COW-TESTING.

NOTES ON THE SEASON’S WORK.

W. M. Singleton.

The extension of the cow-testing movement this season has been gratifying, and bears splendid evidence to the fact that dairy-farmers are improving their herds, and are doing so by building on sound basic principles. There are some twenty associations in operation this season, and already there are others mooted for next season. The associations represent the testing of some 25,000 cows this season. These monthly tests prove good educative factors when taken in the right way. The dairyman has a chance to get a better idea of cow-nature, and interesting avenues of thought are open to the dairyman who is a student. Possibly the matter which puzzles some cow-testing-association members most is the variation which occasionally occurs in the individual tests of a cow. This seldom applies to many cows of the herd, it being the general experience that tests do not vary more than three or four tenths from month to month. Still, some cows do vary very considerably at times, and over 1 per cent, of variation may be evidenced in the tests of certain cows over two consecutive periods. This does not indicate that the testing is wrong, for we have ample evidence that such variations occur where the- strictest care is taken with the sampling and testing. Further than this, it is our experience that even where the sampling and testing are right, where the cows are milked punctually on the stroke of the clock, and where cows are treated kindly and never hurried under these ideal conditions variations of over 1 per cent, on the Babcock bottle are to be found occasionally in the test of a few cows between two consecutive months. Such variations might suggest that cow-testing is not sufficiently reliable for the dairy-farmer. We believe it evidences the fact that one or two tests only for the season may be very misleading, and that tests should be made at regular intervals, monthly, during the whole lactation period to ensure good results. With a number of tests variations tend to counteract themselves. In any case it must be remembered that very few members have even one cow showing the extreme variations indicated above.

A comparison of cow-testing-association returns and factory returns for the season are interesting. In one association it was found that

for the whole season we had credited the average cow in that association with 10 lb. of fat more than that for which the factory paid. This 10 lb. would be accounted for by the following considerations : (1.) We credited each cow with yield from date of calving, whereas this cow’s milk would not be delivered at the factory for three or four days. (2.) Our yield for season includes milk fed to calves. The factory, return does not. (3.) Our return includes milk used by the household and any spilled. The factory return does not. The variation of 10 lb. of fat would be just about the quantity these items would represent in the average herd, and these figures go to show that the system of cow-testing-association work followed in New Zealand is sufficiently accurate for the purposes of cuffing inferior cows and selecting the best cows of the herd for breeding purposes. In fact, the system is all right for anything save making records for purebred cows — phase of cow-testing provided for in another way.