The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1880-07-08
Testing Dairy Cows.

DAIRYMEN need often reminding of
the things they should, but generally do
not, do. We have often illustrated
what occurs in SO many herds-un-
profitable dairying, for the want of in
dividual tests of the cows in the herd.
1t almost passes belief that an intelli.
gent dairyman could keep cows year
after year without knowing whether
they made or lost him money. But such
is the fact and q number of instances
have occurred where dairymen, on q
careful test of each individual COW,
found that one-third of them did not
pay for their keep, one-third paid a
small profit over cost of keep, and the
other third paid handsome profit over
all expenses. Now, is it not easy to see
that such a dairyman would make much
more from his one-third good cows than
from his whole herd-say heE3of=fif-
teen cows five paying good'profit,
five not even paying for their keep, and
five paying little more than their keep,
but no profit; the bad cows just about
balance the good ones, making the
whole herd Improbable? But the five
good cows would require only one-third
of the labor, and would pay at least
double the clear profit.
keeping an Improbable cow than most
other things. For instance, raising a
poor crop year after year, upon the
same land, has but poor apology; but
it may be said that the land can well
be sold aud that it may be improved,
while the COW runs him deeper and
deeper in debt, with no hope of amend
ment.
You may easily test the yield of milk
from each COW, in weight, by hanging
a spring scale at a convenient place in
the stable, where the milk of each COW
can be weighed and recorded one day
in each week. A few weeks will serve
to show the character of each cow with
regard to quantity, and this will repre-
sent her value at the cheese factory,
where the standard is weight. But if
you keep dairy for butter, nothing
short of setting each cows milk by it.
self for a short period and churning the
cream will give the value of the COW
for butter. The bulk or weight of
cream does not test the butter it con-
tains, as the cream is often so unequal
in quality that the butter must be actu-
ally separated to test it. By preparing
a small book with the name or number
of each cow entered, and having a PEN
Gil attached to it, the weighing of each
cows milk will not occupy more than
one minute, and certainly any dairy
man can afford this minute once a week
in consideration of learning the charac-
ter of the cow.
When the dairyman mas determined
that cow is Improbable, he should get
rid of her at the earliest opportunity.
There will be different reasons for de-
string to be rid of COW. II butter is
the product desired, q COW that gives q
liberal quantity Of milk may be quite
undesirable, because the milk is very
poor in cream; and in this case the COW
should be sold to the patron of cheese
factory, to whom she will he valuable;
but if the cow gives too small a guam
tity, of too poor a quality to be profit
able, one of the best ways to get rid Of
her is to fatten her, by feeding with
grain for that purpose. Feed her very
generously, and milk her to pay the cost
of fattcning. This is often profitable
way to test q cows capacity for i'm
provement. Ii she is capable of i'm
provement as n milkcr. such feeding
will test it, and may occ; onally show
so marked an Improvement rs to war
rant her being kept for further trial;
but if she does not improve materially
in milk. she will take on flesh and
soon be ready for the butcher,
while her milk will pay at least
large proportion of the cost of fatten-
iIg. In this way n poor COW may be
disposed of as beef without any real
loss. Dairymen sometimes give cows a
bad character when that character is
the result of insufficient feeding. In
broad sense, the dairyman is wholly
rcspons BILE for the character of his
cows. In the first place, it is his duty
TO give all the food required to manu-
facturc large y ield of milk, and to use
his best endeavors TO develop and en-
large the milk yield of his cows. BY
doing this for the young cows, for two
seasons, and noting the yield of each
for one day in the week, he may de-
terminc which ones are profitable and
which ones Improbable; and the un-
profitable ones he can turn into beef at
good price, and need not keep COW
that does not yield profit.
When dairymen shall give close at
tention to everything that relates to the
management and welfare of their dairy
herds--testing everything. both cows
and food-we shall hear puc:, less about
losses in dairying.-Nut oma; Lice Stock
Jcsrnal.