DAIRYING IN THE ARGENTINE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 318, 31 March 1928, Page 25

DAIRYING IN THE ARGENTINE

ONE VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS “Almost all cows are milked out of doors by hand in the Argentine,” states a recent visitor to that country, according to an exchange. “The machine,” he continues, “is only now beginning to make its appearance, though I have visited one estancia 1 where over two thousand cows are j milked daily by- machinery. I expect i to see a big improvement in machine ! milking, however, within a very- few I years, as satisfactory labour is not ! easily found to meet the development j taking plac6* in dairy-ing. “Generally speaking, the cows are milked but once a day, the calves being allowed to run with the cows for about nine hours a day-, and when milking takes place the calf is strapped to the off foreleg of the cow. When the cow is milked the calf is allowed to do the stripping and in this way the milk yielding capacity- of the cow is developed better than if . the stripping was done by ordinary' labour. The y-ield of milk a cow, for cows milked once a day, may be put down at about six litres a day with a fat test of less than three per cent., while cotvs milked twice a day y-ield up to an average of ten litres a day in spring and summer for good herds. “When the calves are weaned at, say, eight or nine months old, they used to be worth about £ 5 a head, but the depression in beef prices this year has caused a slump in calf values, though this is regarded as temporary.”