The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1927-07-07
COUNTY AGENTS COLUMN.
By ]. L. M'GLONE.
Summer Increases Dairymen's
Troubles.

41oaoANEos
With the advent of summer, diff
cules multiply for the dairyman who
desires to produce clean milk of high
quality with a low bacteria content,
says DR.. DeVoe Meade, head of the
dairy department at the University
of Maryland
Clean milk, however, can be pro-
duced without expensive barns and
elaborate equipment provided care is
exercised and sanitary methods prac-
ticed. Certain precautions are always
necessary to produce milk of superior
quality with respect to flavor, odor,
healthfulness and keeping quality.
Any feed which produces an undesir-
able flavor or odor in milk should be
fed several hours previous to the time
of milking and the barn should be
free from Objectionable odors which
are readily absorbed by milk.
Milk should be produced by clean,
healthy cows and drawn by clean
mixers free from communicable dis
eases. Every precaution should be
taken to prevent the contamination of
milk with dirt or other source
of bachterial infection.
Cows should be curried and brushed
regularly to remove loose hair and
dirt. Just before milking, the belly,
udder and TANKS should be wiped with
a clean, damp cloth and the milk
should be drawn into a small-top milk
pail. Milk should be strained, but it
should be borne in mind that this
practice does not remove bacteria, but
only foreign matter contained in it.
The strainer cloth, as we'll as all uten-
sis with which milk comes in contact
should be kept scrupulously clean and
sterilized, otherwise they become a
fertile source of bacterial infection.
After every precaution has been
taken to prevent the contamination of
milk with dirt and bacteria, the milk
should be Immediately cooled to a
temperature of so degrees or below
and held at that temperature. Every
dairy should be equipped with facili-
ties for rapidly cooling and holding a
milk at low temperature will be of
cooler through which cold water cir
culates and storage tank for holding
milk at law temperature will be of
great assistance in keeping in check
the development of bacteria and will
aid materially in producing milk of
desirable quality.
Mash and Grain Good Laying C0mbi-
nation.
The popular method of feeding lay
ing hens is to keep a mash mixture
made up of ground grains, grain BY
products and meat supplement be-
fore the birds at all times and to feed
scratch feed of whole grains at least
twice daily, says Roy H. Waite, pro-
fessor of poultry husbandry at the
University of Maryland.
Twenty per cent of the mash should
be material of animal origin, such as
meat scrap, fish scrap, dried milk, but
termilk or equivalent. Minerals can
be most economically supplied by ad-
ding from one-half to one pound of
salt to each hundred pounds of mash,
using meat scrap containing a large
percentage of bone, and by keeping
crushed bone, oyster she'll and crushed
limestone grit in hoppers before the
flock at all times.
The fed used for laying hens in the
Maryland State Egg Laying Contest
consists of 100 pounds of wheat bran,
100 pounds of flour middlings, 100
pounds of finely ground No. 2 oats,
100 pounds Of freshly ground No. 2
yellow corn, 100 pounds of meat and
bone meal $50 to SIS per cent protein)
and 21a pounds of sale.
Scratch grain fed with this consists
of equal parts by weight of whole
yellow corn and wheat. The grain
mixture is fed morning and evening
in such amounts that the birds will
get approximately equal parts by
weight of mash and grain.