BUILDING UP A DAIRY HERD

Shannon News, 30 December 1924, Page 4

BUILDING UP A DAIRY HERD

Mr Andrew M’Candlish, advisory, officer in milk production, West of Scotland College of Agriculture* in a paper on the building up of a dairy herd from scrubs, discussed the ex-, periment carried out at lowa State College, beginning in 1907. At that time, he said, the cows were as farfrom being dairy cows as they could imagine. They had no udder or mammary veins worth mentioning, and they. had not been used to good feeding. He indicated that, as a result of good feeding and the use of good pure-bred sires in the herd, there was considerable improvement in the a'pp'earance of the animals now and some were approaching the dairy type. In one generation the milk production had been increased 39 per cent, and in two generations the production of milk had been doubled. Another satisfactory result of the grading up had been a very material decrease in the cost of production per unia. Summing up, Mr M'Candlish said that in building up a dairy herd from scrubs or from good cows they had to look to three points—feeding, breeding, and selection. The cattle must lie well fed from their birth. Unless they used a good bull they could not expect to get a good producing herd, and no matter what breeding policy they were pursuing, unless they weeded out the scrubs that cropped up occasionally, they could not make general progress.