Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1900-12-27
DAIRY BOOKKEEPING.
Records That Are Important and
EaaY In Keen

Records That Are Important ana
Easy TO Keep.
The bookkeeping part OF the man
agement of a large dairy Is of the
greatest Importance, since on the sta
tistical and other data the whole ham
ding of the herd depends. The follow
ing plan OF keeping the records Of 4
large Vermont dairy is given through
The Country Gentleman by J. Wilder
and shows how carefully all points are
looked after by those who make dairy
ing their whole business. Mr.. Wilder
says:
Cloudland farm has a herd of 157
Jerseys. old and young. Our main
business is butter making. Our cows
are part full blood, registered, and part
are grades. We have now 81 cows and
20 2-year-old heifers to come in be-
tween this date and March l. The in
| tentlon is to keep herd Of 100 cows,
| the limit of our stalls. In building up
this herd the plan is to bring 1T to 300
pounds of butter each year and over,
wedding out all that do not come up to
this standard. For this purpose the
proprietor engaged me to come April /,
1899, and institute a system to keep rec
ord of all the animals.
Our general average is about IS cows
In milk from the so cows. We have
six mixers Milking begins at In the
morning and 8 at night, letting no 9TH
err work prevent the rule being com
piled with. We have six milking sheets
covering seven days, recording the
weight of each cows milk morning
and night. This Is added up, and the
weeks result is recorded In q special
book arranged for 10 weeks Zone quar-
teri. My plan is to test the cows the
last week of the first month in the
quarter and the first week In the last
month of the quarter. | add the two
tests together and divide 1t by two to
get the average for the quarter. This
gives the butter fat, which Is extended
into column for that purpose Then
In the last column ada 20 per cent to
the butter fat to get the pounds of but
ter each cow-produces in the quarter.
This gives me the pounds Of milk, but
ter fA and butter for the quarter ac-
c2fding to the calculations made.
Il have a herd ledger. with two pages
for each cow. The left hand page
shows name OF COW. herd number If
registered, register numnerJ, the date
of birth of COW, dam and sire and date
Of dropping calf. If the calf is to be
raised, its herd number, name, sex and
tho Giro If roofctoro6 ora addad. -
sold, to whom sold and when; IL veal
ed, so record 1t. On the right hand
page is recorded the average test, milk
yield. butter fat and butter for each
quarter. Adding the four quarters to-
gether gives the production for the
year. From that we estimate the value
Of the cow, whether she is profitable
to keep in the dairy. OF course heifer
with her first calf has much for con-
sideration-her sire, age when she
drops her calf and the general points
for good cow-to decide whether to
give her another years trial or not.
Just here / wish to ask. Il the two
trials in quarter is safe plan to de-
termine the quality of the COW for
keeping or rejecting or can | adopt a
better system of accounting to obtain
the knowledge desired? am green In
herd accounting. never having exam
ined how others keep their records,
and desire to have the best or as good
as any one.
have another book In which keep
all the dates Of service. with name Of
sire and when due to drop the calf.
This report to the man In charge Of
the barn two or three months in adj
vance, so that he can be on the lookout
and properly provide for the COW in a
box stall