APPEARANCES DECEPTIVE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 786, 5 October 1929, Page 33

APPEARANCES DECEPTIVE

YELLOW-SKINNED CATTLE For some yeai’S it has been a fairly general belief that a yellow, and an oily skin, particularly in a Jersey cow, was aii indication of high butter-fat production ability. A. H. Humphrey, a herd-testing officer, has his doubts on this point (says the “Live Stock Bulletin”). He says that, at the beginning of the season, lie endeavoured to pick out the best and the worst producers iu the different herds which he had to test. He had little success. One dairyman for whom he was testing showed a young Jersey cow with an exceptionally rich yellow skin. Both he and the dairyman agreed, he says, that she should be a high-producing animal, but their judgment was shattered when the Babcock bottle proved her -with a 3.4 test, and the following periods with a 3.5 and a 3.6 test, respectively. The same dairyman pointed out to him a large cow showing Friesian type strongly, anything but a promising tester. Both he and the dairyman concluded that she one of the poorest testers of the herd, but she tested 4.1 per cent. After this, he said, he gave up trying to guess the test of cows. He found that it was a fallacy to~rely on the judgment of the eye, and much better to rely on the Babcock bottles and scales.