CULL COWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1921, Page 7

CULL COWS.

SPECIAL BRANDS ADVOCATED. ARE THEY SOLD AS MILKERS? It was stated at the recent meeting of the Taranaki executive of\the New Zealand Farmers’ Union that cows which were separated from herds and sold as culls were sold back to farmers as milkers. It was advocated that to stop this practice culls should be marked with a special brand. Mr. Owen said that he had a matter to bring up which was of vital importance to the district. The work of the cow testing associations. The Government at the present time partially pays the salaries of the officers testing in the various districts and should have a say in the matter. In order to make the testing of real benefit to the district the officer doing the testing should have the right, when a cow had demonstrated by her test that she was an unprofitable beast, to place a mark on her so that no other dairyman would lose by her. They were not going to progress in the way they should until something like this was done. Mr. Maxwell supported the proposal. He had sold a cow at a sale as a cull and that same cow had come back to a farm adjacent to his from a dealer’s herd as a milch cow. A worthless cow should be marked. The chairman said that the problem would be a good idea to educate the farmers not to buy cull cows?” Mr. Maxwell said that the cows were sold as culls,. ostensibly to go to the yards, but they came back to a farm from the dealers as milch cows. Mr. Hodge said that he had had cows which' had produced 200 pounds less, in one year than in the next. The tester should not be allowed to declare a cow like that is worthless. He would support a proposal that cows which their owners declared were useless should be branded. The chairman said that the problem was a knotty one and they would, have to appraoch it carefully. Some farmers were not testing. How could they get at those? They would be marking the cows of one mon, but not those of another. It was decided, on the suggestion of the chairman, to defer taking action in the matter until further information had been collected and definite lines suggested, upon which legislation, for such a purpose could be framed.