THE PROFITABLE DAIRY COW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8350, 10 February 1913, Page 2

THE PROFITABLE DAIRY COW

The sleek-looking cow is not always a good dairy animal. A report from America states that a farmer bough some poor cows from his neighbours, and although they looked rather .bony in comparison to others m the same herds, they led in a yearly production test composed of over 1100 herds. It is not always the boniest and leanest cow in the herd that is making the smallest profits. As a rule it is tno fattest and smoothest-looking animal in the lot. The only way to know the value of a good cow is to weigh and test her milk. Other methods will enable us to form opinions and pass judgment, but they are not always correct. Wo always find five certain characteristics present in a good cow. They are: Constitution, (capacity, nervous temperament or disposition, a largo blood circulatory system flowing in the right direction, and a largo and well-formed mammary system. A cow must have strength or constitution because she is a hard-working animal. She gives milk ten or more months each year, produces a calf, digests large quantities of food, and sometimes lives under an environment that is unfavourable. FOOD AND DIGESTION. A cow must have the capacity to consume and digest large quantities of food. About 60 per cent, of the feed goes to maintain the body. Some cows are so weak in capacity that they can use little more food than that necessary to sustain the body. Remember that a cow can make absolutely no milk except from the feed she eats. A dairy cow should have a bright, prominent eye. The neck should be thin. The shoulders should be oblique. The shoulder points or withers should bo thin and free from an excess of fatty covering. We should .be able to feel the bones on the cow’s back with ease. In beef cattle the circulatory system is such that the feeding nutrients are carried to the rump, back, loins and ribs, where they are deposited in the form of high-priced meats. This is the wrong type of cow to milk. Notice the mammary vein extending forward from the udder. This vein should bo large, long, and tortuous. It indicates the amount of blood that has been (passing to the udder, and gives us an inkling of the amount of feeding nutrients carried down there. The udder is the place where the milk is made. It must be an efficient organ. The udder should extend far forward in front and attach well up behind. The quarters sho'uld be oven. Long, pointed udders are objectionable: more susceptible to disease, and more liable to be injured. When the udder is milked out it should .ho such that it will collapse like a dishrag. Meaty udders are undesirable. They are filled up with fatty and connective tissues—the wrong kind to produce milk. The texture should be soft and pliable. Cows must be strong in all of the essential points. If they are deficient in any one of these characteristics they will be poor producers.