EXAMINE THE UDDER.

Shannon News, 27 January 1925, Page 4

EXAMINE THE UDDER.

When you are estimating the quality of a cow’s udder an actual examination is absolutely necessary. We have, found by extended experience that before buying a cow it always pays to go over every part of the udder with the hands. Gentle massage (says a writer in ‘‘The Breeder’s Gazette”) will locate every lump and hard spot. Such tumor-like place® oir ••bunches” in an udder tell the story of past attacks of inflammation, slight or severe, and indicate the likelihood of a recurrence of the attack at o subsequent calving. They should also lead one carefully to examine the milk secreted by the affected gland. It is therefore well to strip a stream of milk from each teat in turn into the palm of the hand, the'a note its appearance 'and smell, and if there seems to be no sign of abnormality one may venture to taste the emulsion. The quarter that contains a tumour or, scar tissue has bee'n attacked at some time in its history, and will be subject to further attacks. In some instances tuberculosis of the udder is present, especially where the lump is high up at the rear of the udder. Testing with tuberculin should therefore be done without .fail when hard, insensitive lumps are felt in an udder, at is also unsafe to buy a ‘‘three-teat-cr” cow, or one whose milk is abnormal in any way, lor infection possibly may spread from such a- cow to the -others in the herd. A careful manual examination of the udder in all of its parts, and 'as to the quality of the milk yielded, is of paramount importance before money is invested in a cow and never should be neglected.