THE HERD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4833, 22 May 1925, Page 3

THE HERD.

.N ENORMOUS LEAKAGE.

RESULT OF INCOMPLETE MILKING

It .may very safely be assumed that the loss to New Zealand by the »>' - complete! milking of cows runs In o hundreds, of thouisands a year, says “The Dairyfarmer.” If the last of the milk, which is seldom effectively takepi away, contained the same percentage of butter-fat as the first of the. milk the loss would be- a very serious leakage; but as the l.ast of the milk contains an abnormal amount of butter-fat (up to as high as 16 per cent, and over) the loss ca”. be seen to. be enormous. The incomplete milking of the dairy cow certainly presents the most iserious leakage in the industry, even greater than the loss from contagious diseases such as mammitis and abortion. Th) fact is fairly obvious that the art of haudmilking is rapidly disappearing, and that the percentage of individuals engaged in the milking of cow's who can effectively strip is very small indeed. Even with hand-milking the cows, in the great majority of case:, are not as effectively stripped as tn".v should be,-but with mechanical milking the number of cows that arc properly stripped is very small. And, of course, the larger the herd the less the likelihood that the milking is complete. The investigation of inis serious problem has so far been quite neglected. We should have available authoritative data coverin'? a large number of cows tested for an extended period showing the percentage of fat in the milk first drawn, the percentage of fat in the amount of fat usually taken from the cow, and the percentage of fat contained in vh>; strippnigs. Quite a number of farmers have no doubt tested this matte', for themselves. Only the other day a breeder of pedigree stock who was employing milkers made a check bn their work. These people claimed to be expert milkers and knew all about the importance of stripping. The fit’s heifer they milked was held up in tiltyard after she had left the bail, a few minutes after milking, and the owner stripped her. She gave a quart of milK testing just over 16 per eeir.. butter-fat. But- individual instances are not a conclusive guide in this connection. Another reader of this paper has two herds being milked one herd by sharemilkers and the other by his own family. In the fourth week in March the hqrd being milked by the sharemilkers- was practically all dried off, whereas the herd milked by the owners’ family was splendidlv maintaining its normal production-. So it will be. so.en it is not only tne actual loss of butter-fat in the strippings at each milking that has to be taken into account, but the loss butter-fat from cows that have been prematurely dried off because of poor milking methods. We would direct the attention of dairy company directorates and breed society executiveto this grave problem.