HERD TESTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1941, Page 7

HERD TESTING

GOOD PROGRESS CONTINUES WOMEN TAKE UP WORK. INVESTIGATION OF OTHER PROBLEMS. (“Times-Age” Special.) The fact that sterility was being investigated under actual farm conditions for the first time was disclosed by Mr A. H. Ward, Dairy Board technical officer to the New Zealand Herd Improvement Association, in a brief address to the ward conference held at Carterton yesterday afternoon. Mr Ward stated that owing to the drain on man-power, all herd testing officers had been released. Sixty women were in employment as herd testers and the position had been met by training 140 women, who were ready to take up the work. A further 32 were being trained. The amalgamation of herd testing associations into the Herd Improvement Association had been carried out very smoothly. Full co-operation was being received from dairy companies. The key to successful breeding was sire surveying, he said. There were many poor bulls in New Zealand, and it required generations to eradicate the trouble. An extensive survey was being carried out with the assistance of 240 farmers. An analysis of their findings would be made at the encl of the year. Low production, mastitis and sterility in cows were receiving attention, said Mr Ward. A technical committee had been sot up in Wellington consisting of representatives of the Dairy Board and of the Department of Agriculture. For the first time sterility was being attacked from where it. existed —on the farm. Attempts were being made to define the conditions under which it flourished and under which it was least prevalent. Three hundred farmers would supply full details to the committee. Thus farmers could be advised of conditions to be Avoided. Wastage in calves was also being investigated. In short, the function of the association was to indicate, where problems could not be solved, how conditions leading up to the trouble could be avoided.