Building up a Dairy Herd. 99 1> 



BUILDING UP A DAIRY HERD. 



Bii A. Kijle. 



Ill travelling through some of our dah-ying districts one is struck 

 with the miserable, shapeless cows the average dairyman is breeding, 

 which is due to the fact that any sort of a bull is used in such herds. 

 The bull is looked u])on as a cheap machine to bring the cows in each 

 year, and no thought is given to tlie building up of a herd of good 

 looking, high test cows. High prices are freely given for cows, and 

 whilst the average dairyman is prepared to pay £10 and £12 each for 

 cows, a bull at £5 or £6 is considered quite good enough. There is 

 no greater mistake made than this ; let a man start his dairy with 

 ordinary cows of good colour, and having a fair show for milk, and 

 obtain a first-class bull from a good milking strain, and in a few 

 years he will build up a dairy herd worth looking at. The cost of a 

 good bull, say £60, appears to most men an enormous sum of money, 

 and the bull running in the paddock and seemingly earning nothing, 

 looks almost like a white elephant, but when the owner considers 

 that every calf dropped on the place is affected by the bull, the £60 

 soon sinks into insignificance. A man with 60 cows will easily put 

 30s. per head value on the heifers he rears by using a first-class bull, 

 and the Krst year's increase will, in all probability, return him his 

 outlay. But it is later on that he reaps the greatest benefit, when the 

 heifers by sucli a bull come into the bail, and he is getting a good 

 How of milk as well as a high test at the factory. The wonder is that 

 dairymen who use a mongrel bull do not see the disadvantage they 

 are labouring under, especially when they attend a clearing sale of 

 cows and see them fetch to £20, only because their sire had breeding 

 and quality in him. Where do we look for the successful dairyman ? 

 to the man who pays great attention to the selection of the bulls used 

 in his herd. Some of the bulls we notice running with dairy herds 

 are not fit to be at large, and the owners of such animals are generally 

 pretty low down in the world, and always low down on the factory 

 list. If the average dairyman of to-day wishes to compete with his 

 more successful neighbours he must pay a great deal more attention 

 to the selection of his bulls, and in a few years he will have a most 

 valuable asset in the form of a herd of well bred, high test cows 

 that will always command a high price. 



