STRIPPING COWS.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 285, 21 July 1908, Page 6

STRIPPING COWS.

Professor McConnell, the eminent English dairy expert, discussing in an English journal the question whether cows should be stripped after milking, says he is one of those who all his life was accustomed to see cows stripped out by a responsible person, who followed after the regular gang of milkers ; but recent events caused him to change his mind as to the advisableness of the practice. Many authorities have pointed out aforetime that, as the milk secretion - was intimately connected with the nervous oiganisation, the stopping of the milk and then coming back to start it again was doing the cow harm, as it amounted to restarting the nervous energy. About a year ago Professor McConnell stated his belief that stripking was absolutely necessary. He now begs to take it all back, as since then he has tried his cows the other way, with the most satisfactory results. They are now milked out at one sitting, and if a small quantity be left in the bag, -the professor argues it does the cow no harm, but helps to swell the total z yield at the next milking time. If there is any possible gain, then, in stripping he contends that it is discounted by the harm done to the cow by the stripper in starting her nervous force once more. Alongside of the cessation of stripping, hewever, another practice has also been abandoned —that is, \ the changing round of the gang of milkers, so that each cow is I milked by each milker in rotation ; every man now sticks to his own

lot of cows, and as one cow drops out and another comes in, the lots are kept as equal possible, As far as Professor AlcConnell can see, the results to the cows, to the milkers, and to the milk yield are eminently satisfactory, and he for one will not go back to the old system.