CHAPTER VI 



HANDLING A DAIRY HERD FOR PROFIT 



HOWEVER excellent the breed of our dairy cows may 

 be, and however good milkers they may have been 

 in some one else's care, all this may be lost by in- 

 different handling. There are many cows which 

 never milk well because they have never had the 

 chance, through this fault of indifferent handling. 



We do not wish to advance the oft-repeated 

 maxim "Treat a dairy cow with kindness/' for the 

 man who is investing in dairy cows will naturally 

 handle them as a business proposition, and that is 

 the kind of handling to which they will respond. 

 If you tie a blue ribbon round a cow's neck, pet it, 

 and make a fuss of it, she will give you no more 

 milk than if kept in a clean stall and tied by a 

 halter, rope, or stanchion and well fed. <( Kindness " 

 means shelter from wind and good food, which our 

 pasture lands do not, unfortunately, always supply. 



The old style of cow standing knee-deep in 

 manurial mud inside a bush or stone kraal subjected 

 to all the four winds of heaven, the blazing sun, the 

 beating rain, or the biting frost, means indifferent 



