TESTING FIGURES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 58, 24 March 1937, Page 15

TESTING FIGURES

A Guide to Breeding The Future Herd PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY The use of test figures as a guide to breeding the future herd is fairly well understood, although their epecial application to bull indexing is not yet very widespread. But their use as a guide >to the treatment of the herd is not quite so well appreciated. We may to some extent regard the cow as a machine for making fodder into milk, with the important difference that some of the raw material (fpdder) is used to maintain the body of the "machine." Inofficienoy in butterfat production may then come under three heads : — 1. Inefficient cows. 2. Faults in the supply of raw materials. 3. Wrong proportion of cows to fodder. Let us take No. 3 first. This simply means overstocking, an evil still very prevalent. Many farmers eeem to think that bigger returns will inevitably follow an increase in the number of cows milked. The first result of such an iif crease, it should be remembered, is a greater demand on the fodder supply for the maintenance of the extra cows' bodies. This leaves less raw material available for production than hitherto. The writer haa seen many instances of this in the course of testing on hill farms which have been abandoned for some time, and are now being brought back into production. Though each year sees an increase in the fodder supply, many .farmers, faced with low incomes and heavy costs, made corresponding additiona to their herds, and always. have a few cowa too many. At the saine time they btiy exppnsive bulls, and obtain 150 to 2001m butter fat from cows capable of making 3001b. under better conditions. Some farmers in the district have realised the true position and the better results they have obtained bear out these arguments. A similar evil is the supposition that any feed is good enough for dry cattle. Gows turned out in the winter are offcen put in a paddock of inferior feed, with the result that they are in poor oondition when their next lactation begins. Elven when feed is abundant later in the season such cows seem to be incapable of making a recovery. A high producer must have good body reserves at the beginning of the lactation.

Seasonal Variations. It becomes evident then, that a failure at one period in the supply of raw materials to the cow may have an effect on later production. Th© need for supplementing the feed obtained from pastures varies with the time of year and, in general, the butter-fat average of the herd from month to month is some indication of these requirements. In the writer's own district it is found that almost all herds on the flat country reach their peak in November, while'those on the hills are a full month later. After this peak the decline is usually rapid, though millet will, to some extent, arrest it provided it is supplemented with Bome other fodder which tends towards fat production. and offsets the tendency of millet to lower the condition of the cows and the test of their milk. The time of year at which cows calve is an item which should receive more consideration. Some farmers arrange for them to come in late, despite the fact that test figures invariably show (for the district" under consideration) that cows calving from October on.wards fall in production in the dry spells between January and April just as quickly as those calving in the winter months. Where November is the time of peak production the cows calving in Juiy and August seem to be most favoured, although those coming in during the late autumn make a good recovery in the spring and finish with high records, if they are well fed through the winter. It should be noted that a similar recovery does not take place in cows which have slumped in production during dry weather.

ineffiDfent Cows. This heading opens up a number of questions. Every one knows that the raature cow, which makes low records vear after year, in spite of good condition, is inefficient. But the system of working out herd averages with allowances has served to make many forget that a heifer, though later she may be a champion, is usually for the time "inefficient" in so far as a mature cow taking her- place in the herd would have a greater actual production for the year. Does this not suggest that less attention should be given to a «ingle year's record and more importance to the number of years a cow can continue as a reasonably high producer? Many high yielding animals have a useful life of only three or four vears, while others may continue at almost the same level for 12 or more. Can this quality be strongly inherited in certain strains of cattle? If so, it would tond to increase fthe faotory returns owing to the smaller number •if heifers required each year to fill va■aancies in the herd. This also raises the question whether some strains inherit better and more lasting teeth, and tvhether some conditions are specially favourable to better teeth and longer •iseful llfe. Since many cowb' careers are cut «hort by mammitis and abortion, the resistance to these diseases has an important bearing on this question of longevity. In recent years many have ohanged over from Jergeys to other breeds, in .the belief that the other breeds may be less susceptible to these diseases, though it is difficult to tell whether this belief has any real i'oundation Probably, in all breeds, vlgil«tnce should be exercised to eliminate any strains which show low resistance. Finally, owners of low-producing cows should be wary of forcing record production by excessive use of concen-

trates. Experience shows that it very often proves such a tax on the cow's , system that it ruins her chances of any further seasons of high production. This article is written to show how test figures can be studied and applied to the solution of many dairying prohlems. It is written to suggest questions rather than to answer them. It resis with the herd owners to angwer their own problems by using all the available faots about their cows, seasonal conditions, etc., and drawing correct conclusions from these facta.