Record Numbers Under Group Herd Testing Scheme Last Year

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 60, 25 June 1948, Page 5

Record Numbers Under Group Herd Testing Scheme Last Year

In spite of the continued labour shortages and the uncertainty of the supply of some articles of testing equipment, a record of 300,000 cows under the Group Herd Testing schemes was set up in the 1946-47 testing season, said Mr H. B. Lawry, technical officer of the Herd Recording Department, in an address to the Waimana Herd-Improvement group on Tuesday. This makes an increase of 26,631 cows on the previous season. Mr Lawry went on to explain the functions of the herd improvement organisation, showing how, through the organisation, farmers’ returns were increased by increasing the productivity of the single cow and the herd as a whole. One of the main points in Mr Lawry’s address was his review of the sire survey made by his department over the past seasons.' He explained an old fallacy which in.the past farmers had stressed too much; namely the disposing of bulls after they had been at the service for a few years. The theory seemed to be, he said, that bulls decreased in fertility and consequently in value as herd sires. This, Mr Lawry continued, was the way that a lot of the higher class bulls in the country were lost to the industry. His next subject was the calf wastage survey made by the department. He pointed out that the main cause of calf wastage on the farms was through accidents, these taking 35.2 of the total. Speaking on the sterility problem that has been troubling some farmers, Mr Lawry said that this was luckily mainly of a temporary nature and if the cows were to “miss” for one season, it would be almost certain that they would get in calf the following year.

After Mr Lawry’s address, a film by Professor Petersen of America, on “Milk Secretion” was shown. This film gave an “inside” version of the production system of a dairy cow in milk and showed how the milk is secreted in the udder by the injection of a hormone into the blood-stream by an emotional disturbance such as the washing of the udder or the sucking of a calf.