HERD-TESTING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4732, 1 August 1924, Page 3

HERD-TESTING.

N.Z. CO-OP. ASSOCIATION. HIKUTAIA GROUP. Some interesting statistics have been supplied to us by the secretary of the New Zealand Co-operative Herd Testing Association, Hamilton. The figures, covering some 73 pages of foolscap, deal in a comprehensive manner with the twenty-five groups in the association, and show that during the past season 31,003 cows, comprising 630 herds, were tested. The total of the association's average over the whole of the groups works out at 207.811 b of fat in 237 days. A summary of the combined groups shows that the ten highest herds averaged 354.011 b of fat in 273 days ; the ten highest cows averaged 605.701 b of fat in 300 days. The ten lowest herds averaged 97.96 lb of fat in 159 days, and the 10 lowest cows 66.111 b in 225 days. In addition to the summaries of the combined groups the averages for each group has been taken out separately. In the Hikutaia group, comprising 26 herds, of a total of 1287 cows, representing portions of Paeroa, Netherton, and Hikutaia, the ten highest herds (491 cows) averaged 2®5.651b of fat in 243 days, and the ten lowest herds (500) cows averaged 168.171 b of fat over a period of 219 days. The ten highest cows in the group averaged 407.571 b of fat in 279 days, while the ten lowest cows averaged only 91.631 b in 235 days. Of the ten highest cows three Jersey-Shorthorns, whose ages are 10, 6, and 9- years, gave 460.671 b, 452.661 b, and 406.561 b of fat in 310, 310, and 207 days respectively. The worst three of the ten lowest cows are Shorthorns, aged 4,6, and 4 years, giving 49.811 b, 73.81, and 80.981 b of fat in 220, 220, and 224 days respectively. The' total cost of testing in the Hikutaia group for the season is shown as 4s 2d a cbw, which is 4d a cow below the association’s average. The necessity of such an organisation as the herd-testinfl association with the manifold advantages of having dairy herds under official test is daily being brought home to farmers throughout the province. Last year the New Zealand Co-operative Herd Testing Association carried out an enormous amount of “spade work” and broke down a great deal of antagonism displayed by farmers to herd-test-ing. Arrangements are well in hand for the formation of testing groups in Paeroa and Netherton this season, in addition to the group already established at Hikutaia, and the association is confidently looking forward to nearly doubling its figures of last year. What farmer would not pay the maximum sum of five shillings a year to the association to find out that he had a “dud” cow in his herd ?