Farming Column

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1931, Page 3

Farming Column

TEMPORARY STERILITY IN COWS.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MINERAL STARVATION.

The average farmer believes when he turns his cows on to luscious pastures he is supplying them with all they can reasonably want in the way of nourishment to maintain themselves in health, develop a calf, and produce an abnormal amount of milk and butterfat. But is) he ? To answer this (Question one needs must consider for a moment what a cow demands for these processes. For her own maintenance she needs proteins and carbohydrates to form blood and tissue; lime phosphates and various other minerals to form the skeleton and" to supply the blood and various glands. For her calf, while she is carrying it, she needs these ingredients, but with the difference that mineral matter is still more in demand than for the mature animal. For the abnormal supply of milk which she is bred to produce she must have tliest minerals in abundance—-they are the chief ingredients of the milk.

HANDICAPS.

One of the greatest handicaps dairy farmers have to face is termed “temporary , sterility.” By careful selection and tl»e use of the best sires procurable a dairy farmer builds a choice herd of 'heavy-producing cows. Then, just when he should enjoy the benefit uf ins care and skill, lie finds a number of his cows do not become pregnant. The most unfortunate, and yet significant feature is that those cows which are temporarily sterile are almost invariably the heaviest producers in his herd;

The significance of the matter lies in the circumstances, that so far research directed to the cause of this trouble has not disclosed any germ likely to cause the sterile condition of the animal, and because there appears to be a definite relationship between milk yield and temporary sterility. Research into problems of , animal reproduction would seem to show that all life is subject to three main laws of nature, which in their order of importance are survival, reproduction and production. In fine, the first urge of nature is that the animal shall if possible survive; secondly, that -as soon as. possible it shall reproduce its own kind; finally, that all surplus.vitality left after the two preoeeding urges have been satisfied shall be devoted to sustaining some life other than its..own.

NATURE INTERVENES

Now, it is obvious that, if survival and reproduction exhaust the. , forces of an. animal, production must go by the board.. - Similarly, „ if survival is threatened because production has exhausted all the surplus force, Nature steps, in, -and/by making the animal, temporarily,,sterile ensures its survival. ' Year after,,year, we continue to carry ou'r dairy cows .on the same pastures, content so- long as there is grass in abundance, forgetting that essential minerals are being exhausted from the soil and therefore from the grass; that our cows consequently suffer through mineral starvation. Nature intervenes when the cow’s survival is threatened by this draining of minerals from her system. It may well be that when a cow is called upon to take from her own system minerals which should be in her feed, Nature .protests the animals by rendering her sterile, pending recovery of the cow’s mineral balance, v .• V

In the.light of the foregoing the conclusion must be: Prevention of sterility may be found in the feeding of minerals for which animals are being starved. ... . 'f ■ '• V K —— NOTES:/OF THE WEEK.

ANALYSIS OF SOILS. HERD IMPROVEMENT METHODS. ■An opinion commonly .-held is that il a sample of soil is analysed the farmer will know just .what the soil lacks in fertility and what fertilisers to apply. The scientist has long since declared 'that this is quite wrong.' Dr Annett points out. that/an-;acre of soil to the depth of nine inches weighs about three million pounds..'; Say a man was advised to use three cwt. of superphosphate to make good the deficiency in his soil as disclosed by a soil analysis. This would mean that the expert could detect b\ soil analysis the difference made bv adding 3361 b. -of - superphosphate to 8,000,0001 b. of 50i1... There was no experienced analyst in the world who would re>!y on "detecting su'ch a difference ever if i,t were fifty times as great. One eaii give, says Dr Annett, a fair guich regarding the lime content hut the soil (analysis gives ,no guide to. phosphate potash or nitrogen requirements. In a country where, a- detailed, study of the .soils has of .crop .yields on these soils aW re large number: of analyses have been made, the analys can give a certain amount of advice As a result of the agricultural knowiedg and -analytical data available he can frequently say a soil fron a known area .whether it is likely t respond to phosphate or potash. M ARK ED, CALVES.

Special d.bsses? are being provided for marked calves ■(noticed igree) in the show of the Waikato;. AC and P. Associatioi this year. Special prizes are being given for boys and girls .'for the best essay on the marked ajalL movement and f° r the

best photograph of a. marked calf. The marked ©all movement ;is one of the most effective means of permanent herd improvement yet devised and such assistance from A. and P. Associations is heartily to be commended.

'AN AUSTRALIAN- VISITOR. One of the Australian Co-operative Marketing delegates who has been visiting this country, Mr F. Daley, of Queensland, is a keen 'Milking Shorthm/n breeder. 'He saw something of New Zealand herds and was greatly impressed with several members of the herd of Mr J. Ran,stead. He expressed surprise at -the high standard of the ordinary Jersey-grade herds he- had seen in the Taranaki and Auckland provinces, and gave it as his opinion that farmers hiving good Jersey-Shorthorn grades were wise in using Jersey bulls, as the Jersey sire was more prepotent for milk production than the Shorthorn, a broadminded statement from a Shorthorn enthusiast. Mr Daley was surprised to kr, o w that silage-making was' so general in the dairying districts of this country. In Queensland, dairy farmers had quite failed to realise the value of silage and did not seem to appreciate the .fact that- quite good siilage can be made from paspaluin, the common grass in Queensland. DEMAND FOR CERTIFICATE. Mr Dynes Fulton, President of the Herd-Testing Federation, has directed the attention of farmers to the importance of demanding the certificate when tested stock are offered for sale. ■lf the stock have been tested, the owner should be able to produce the certificate, and the production of the certificate is the one sure guarantee that the animal has been tested and has given the production stated. GOOD PRICES FOR BULLS. The extent to which Jersey value has been maintained despite the economic depression is reflected in the tact that one 'leading breeding establishment in the Waikato has disposed of this season its entire offering of fourteen pedigree Jersey bulls at an average price of approximately 50 guineas. Many of these buils were purchased by ordinary dairy farmers to go into grade herds which can be taken as an indication of the growing tendency to combat lower prices by increased production through the use of good quality bulls. I WHAT HERD-TESTING MEANS A Gisborne man, farming on a small scale, who had experienced the vame of herd-testing in another district had to get a herd together. He was a returned soldier and went Poverty Bay becausof the climate. He wisely would not buy stock from a testing farmer knowing if ihe did that he would get definite culls, but he brought from non-testing farmers, men who diu not know the rein.

, o ui the - n him als they were selling. And the result proved a great advertisement for herd-testing. With eight culls of non-testing farmers, he obtained the second highest return in the district —an. average of 3701 bof fat. WORLD’S CALVING RECORD.

What is cibubtless a world’s calving record was made by iin old Jersey cow belonging to S. A. Savage, an Alberta, Canada, farmer, which recently died in her ■ thirty-first year: In Julie 1930 she dropped her twenty-eighth calf and at the time of her death was carrying her twenty-ninth. Mr Savage bought her when a calf thirty-one years ago and she has always be. n a good milker. When she freshened in 1929 with the twenty-seventh calf she gave forty pounds of milk daily. As she approached calving in 1930 she was still giving ten pounds daily and her owner havng difficulty in getting her dried off for a rest period before dropping her twentyeighth calf in June 1930. A short time before dropping her 1930 calf she was examined by the British Columbia Government veterinary inspector, who stated that she unquestionably was 30 vr>M..vs of age, as revealed by what he found in inspecting her horns, mouth and other parts. At that time most oi her mo.iirs were gone and she had but one incisor and that was worn to the gums, but she was in fairly good condition for her twenty-eighth calving. Th s grand old mother-cow was a striking example of the longevity and hardiness of the Jersey breed, for she had lived all her life in a. country where temperatures of 20 to 30 degrees belov zero are common in winter and where the thermometer frequently goes as high as 95 to 100 degrees'in the summer months. CERTIFIED RYEGRASS. The use of weak non-persistent strains >f ryegrass is generally the weak line in efficient grassland management. Time and again men who have become alive to the great importance of complete or juuinced . manur-ng, are having their -noCre • Work nul’fied by the tact that their pastures consist of the wrong grasses,' especially the weak, noil-persist-ent- types of ryegrass. Under the old method of allowing the grass to seed i-he-'.e poor types of ryegrass had full ipportunity of reseeding but with the grass eaten off in the leaf stage and lio reseeding takin place, the poor types of ryegrass have gone out. Yet in any such cases 'the weakening of the pasture has been attributed to the failure of the mamirial treatment. On the other hand, where big success has followed conip.e.e manuring the pastures have contained the leafy persistent strains of ryegrass, which have thrived under the balanced manuring and the close grazing. At the present time no one can afford to use anything hut certified ryegrass seed.