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585. WHAT IS A GOOD DAIRY COW ? 



The Dairy Industry of Jamaica has in recent years been advan- 

 cing "ii improved and modern lines with the result thai there is a 

 more regular supply of pure milk in the town- and an increasing 

 demand for fresh butter. In consequence a demand for good dairy 

 ■cows Ims been created, and the good familiar advertisement, " Wanted 

 a o-ood dairy cow." is seldom absent from the columns of our daily 

 papers. The question I now want to establish is, what is the Jamaica 

 standard for a good dairy cow ? Whereas ten years ago six to -even 

 una lis a day was considered good, now we hear of sixteen and twenty 

 quart cows According to the custom in Jamaica 1 here use the word 

 quarts, but 1 think it is high time all dairymen substituted pounds 

 tor quarts and estimated the milking standard of their cows on a basis 

 of the number of thousand pounds yield per annum. It requires no 

 pencil and paper to convert pounds into quarts, 3,000 lbs. = 300 gal- 

 lons or 1,200 quarts, this is I consider the minimum yield require i of 

 •a cow in order to give a fair return to the dairymen for his care and 

 feeding. It is a common custom among dairymen, in other countries 

 besides Jamaica, to award to the cow that gives the largest quantity in 

 any one day the distinction of " Best Cow in the Dairy." but if care- 

 ful daily records of each cow's yield were taken, dairymen would be 

 surprised to learn how often they are deceived by the cow that gives 

 the largest quantity when fresh in milk. The year's product is the 

 only thing that counts when you balance the year's account, and if 

 daily records were taken it would be found that the persistent eight 

 quart cow. milking ten months in the year and idle two. came out 

 1 letter in the year's record than the cow that had a record when fresh, 

 of sixteen quarts and over. 



The standard 1 have fixed for my own guidance and which is 

 based on my experience of selected native bred cows is as follows : — 

 Fair, 3,000 lbs. ( 1,200 quarts), to 4,500 lbs. per annum. 

 Good, 4,500 lbs. (1,800 quarts), to 6,000 lbs. per annum. 

 Very Good, 6,000 lbs. (2,400 quarts), and upwards per annum. 



This. I think, might be accepted as a standard for dairymen in 

 Jamaica to work by at least for some few years more. In my own 

 dairy of 30 native cows at this rating 1 have 22 fair. 7 good, and 1 

 very good, and anything below 3,000 lbs. I have no place for. 



The aim of everv dairyman should be to improve the milk yield 

 by weeding out the poor unprofitable cows and replacing them by 

 better, but to arrive at this he must first keep a careful record and 

 weigh the milk at each milking. It only means a little trouble, a 

 spring balance, and a book with a column for each cow, but it is 

 worth it ! Let your milk buckets be all exact weight to even pounds 

 so that the tare can easily be deducted, and at the end of the month 

 total up the return from each cow and record it. take a note of the 

 days she is idle, and when her 365 days are up you will have a record 

 that will be worth to you many pounds. Your weight book is the 

 best and surest indication of the health of your cows, and the value of 

 your feeding, it tells you daily if vour cows are properly milked and 

 cared, and whether or not vour cows are profitable 



