BRITISH DAIRY FARMERS' MILK TRIALS 



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season (" bulling ") ; also if they are hunted in any way, or even 

 driven a long distance to pasture, especially if not permitted 

 to go at the slow pace natural to a cow. More food is needed 

 in these circumstances to make good the extra waste of 

 the system, and all this requires to be deducted from what 

 would have gone, under more settled conditions, to the forma- 

 tion of milk. The milk secreted is also inferior in quality, 

 being poor in heat producers, especially butter-fat, and more 

 liable to spoil in keeping or in the manufacture of its products. 

 This is supposed to arise from the presence of an alkaloid which 

 appears in the systems of animals that are excited or over- 

 heated as in a fit of bad temper, or after being hunted. 



The amount of milk given by a cow in the morning as 

 compared with that in the evening (twelve hours elapsing 

 in each case after the previous milking) varies with varying 

 conditions. When cows lie out all night, and when day and 

 night are mild, there is usually more milk in the evening 

 than in the morning. When the nights are cold this dispro- 

 portion is more marked ; but should the nights be warm and 

 comfortable, the days too hot and the cows unsettled, there 

 will be a greater yield of milk in the morning. In moderate 

 weather cows feed more by day than by night, and the result 

 is immediately seen in improved milk production. 



Under the conditions in which the milk trials of the 

 B.D.F.A. are conducted, the evening is usually less in quan- 

 tity but richer in quality than the morning yield, yet F. J. 

 Lloyd has shown that in nearly all the breeds the total 

 weight of fat in the morning closely approaches the total 

 weight in the evening milk. 



out only at night, when the horse-flies cease from troubling and the 

 gad-flies are at rest. The plague of flies is worse in wooded districts and 

 least in pastures near the sea, where the delicate Channel Islands cow 

 may, in fly-time, be seen in Sussex tethered during the day." 



