PRODUCTION LOSSES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1080, 18 September 1930, Page 10

PRODUCTION LOSSES

STILL A TROUBLE TO DAIRYMEN WORK OF DEPARTMENT The losses of dairy cows, or of production from dairy cows, still continues to be a source of trouble to dairy farmers, though, on the whole, showing a lessening tendency, says Hr. C. J. Reakes, Birector-General of Agriculture, in the departmental report for 1920-30. Research into the particular troubles *—mammitis, temporary sterility, and abortion —is being actively pursued, and, though no positive results have been attained, some good progress has been made in knowledge regarding mammitis and temporary sterility. As regards contagious abortion, it is possible by a simple blood-test to determine whether cows or heifers are carrying infection, and a large number of these tests are being made. But no simple and easy method of prevention or of freeing an animal from infection is known here or anywhere. The number of cases of mammitis occuring can, undoubtedly be reduced by care in handling and operating milking machines, both as regards the maintenance of cleanliness and the proper regulation of pressure, by general cleanliness in milking sheds, and by good herd management. It is important that cases be detected at the first onset, when proper treatment carefully applied will often bring about recovery. The research work into temporary sterility is following more or less defined lines, including the influence of the bull and the possibility of periods of impotency in bulls, the influence of varying phospliatic and lime content of the herbage, and the existence of diseased or abnormal conditions in the ovaries or other parts of the generative system of cows. There is also the question of Nature enforcing upon cows a temporary rest from calf-production and milk-yield by way of maintaining a normal balance of health continued later productive power. ______