The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1906-03-09
PROFIT ON 20 COWS.
w. F. Schilling Tells Minnesota State
Da;rymen's Association of
His Experience.

What our dairy herd has done dur
Ing the past year embodies more per-
haps than can be told in brief ar
ticle. There are many things incl
dent to the caring for and work of a
large dairy herd which comes up from
day to day that are only incidents to
the daily routine on the farm, yet
they are in the main necessary to the
dairy success. In fact, dairy success
cannot be had, without the close at
tentiOn to detail.
To begin with, our herd was select
ed with regard only to dairy eff
cheney from the standpoint of a dairy
farmer, and not at all with the idea
that they were to be fancy. True, it
is one breed predominates, and this
because of the similarity of the con.
formation and disposition of the ami.
mails. They were gathered together on
October, 1904, and on November Is.
the work of the herd began, and we
will state that the years work was be-
gun under a condition certainly not
conducive to the best results for dairy
ing.
The dairyman must know his cows.
They, like individuals of the human
race, have each disposition Of their
own, and each COW must be studied
and her peculiarities and wants ca
tered to. This, in our first year, witE
about 40 head of new stock, was not
easy to do, especially as the cows
looked nearly alike, and many days
passed before their names could be
learned. But these difficulties were
soon mastered after fashion.
Our feed was pretty good. We had
ensilage (almost indispensable in feed
ing dairy cows, clover hay, ground
oats, corn, bran and oil meal. The
cows were fed ensilage in the morning
after milking with their grain, oil
meal, etc., mixed with it. After break
fast the COWS were watered and then
fed light feed of clover hay, which
sufficed until the middle of the day.
At noon feed of millet hay was
given and at one or two o'clock, If
the weather was pleasant, tho cows
were turned out in an eight-acre pas
ture east of the barn. We use no COW
yard, as I have found that it is next
thing to impossible to keep cow yard
clean around the buildings in all kinds
of weather. They were never permit
ted to be out more than two hours,
and upon returning to the barn were
given a light feed of clover hay and
milking was commenced at five
o'clock.
We always milk at five in winter
and summer, and no work in the fields
or anywhere else changes this rule.
Twenty-nine cows milked more or
less, and were kept through the year,
and two more started, but did SO poor
ly at the end of the first six months
they were sold.
The 20 head gave an average of g.
O27 1-3 pounds Of milk each for the
milking period ranging from four to
IL months, or an average of nine
months and II days for each cow,
counting out the four cows that were
not In calf at the time Of beginning
the test, and the average would be g.
665 4-5 pounds each. Taking our av-
erage test at the creamery at 3.74 and
we would have 1905 pounds of butter
fat for each COW in the Is. Adding the
four farrow cows and we would have
297 pounds Of butter fat for each COW
in the herd, or considerably over 300
pounds Of marketable butter.