The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1900-11-16
DAIRY BOOKKEEPING.
Records That Are Important and
Easy TO Keep.

Records That Are Important and
Easy TO Keep.
The bookkeeping part of the mar
agement Of Il large dairy is of the
greatest Importance, since on the sta
tistical and other data the whole han
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 q herd of ISL
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
26 2-ycar-old heifers to come in be-
tween this date and March 1. The in
tention is to keep herd Of 100 COWS.
the limit Of our stalls. In building uD
this herd the plan is to bring it to 800
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 65 COWS
in milk from the so COWS. We have
six mixers. Milking begins at in the
morning and 5 at night, letting no 9TH
er 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 a special
book arranged for 13 weeks Zone quar-
teri. Ny 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 it by two to
get the average for the quarter. This
gives the butter fat, which is extended
into q column for that purpose. Then
in the last column l add 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 fat and butter for the quarter ac-
cording to the calculations made.
| have a herd ledger, with two pages
for each COW. The left hand page
shows name of COW, herd number Gf
registered. register number), the date
of birth of COW, dam and sire and date
of dropping calf. If the calf is to be
=
the sire, if registered, are added; if
sold, to whom sold and when; if veal
ed, so record it. 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 a heifer
with her first calf has much for con-
sideration-he sire, age when she
drops her calf and the general points
for a good coW-to decide whether to
give her another years trial or not.
Just here l wish to ask if the two
trials in quarter is a safe plan to de-
terrine the quality of the cow for
keeping or rejecting or can I adopt a
better system of accounting to obtain
the knowledge desired? I 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.
I have another book in which l keep
all the dates Of service, with name of
sire and when due to drop the calf
This 1 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