VAN PELT'S COW DEMONSTRATION 



The Escutcheon 



The escutcheon is that portion of the hind quarters 

 above the udder where the hair grows upward. At each 

 side of the escutcheon the hair grows in the opposite direction. 

 It is a theory, and probably true, that the reason why the 

 hair on this portion of the body grows in the opposite direction 

 is because it is nourished by the large arteries passing into 

 the udder, while the hair on each side is nourished by other 

 blood vessels in the same manner as the hair on other parts 

 of the body. There was a time when judges of dairy cattle 

 paid a great deal more attention to the size and shape of 

 the escutcheon than they do at the present, because they 

 probably had not yet realized that a much simpler and per- 

 haps a truer method of determining the volume of blood 

 passing through the udder was by the mammary veins. 



The escutcheon that is long and wide, extending down 

 over a portion of the udder, is an indication of a large amount 

 of blood passing into the udder, taking with it large amounts 

 of nutrients. The mammary veins are found passing for- 

 ward along the underline of the cow from the udder toward 

 the shoulder pits. Every cow has two of these veins, one 

 on each side. On some cows these veins are short, straight 

 and small. On others they are large, long, tortuous and 

 branched. In one case only a small amount of blood is 

 passing through the udder, while in the other instance the 

 indication is that there has been an extremely large volume 

 of blood flowing in the proper direction for milk production. 



Mammary Veins 



Cows differ very greatly in development of mammary 

 veins. Some have a third vein, termed a center extension, 

 passing forward along the center of the belly. At the end 

 of each of these veins there is a hole in the abdomen through 

 which the blood passes back on its way to the heart and 

 lungs for purification and to be pumped back again on its 

 former route past the digestive apparatus and around through 

 the udder to other portions of the body, where it carries nutri- 

 ents for the maintenance of the animal. These small holes in 

 the abdomen are called milk wells. If the vein is small, only 

 a small milk well will be found at the end. If the flow of blood 

 is sufficiently great, the mammary veins become developed 

 to greater proportions and in turn the milk wells are large. 

 Oftentimes one well is not enough for each vein, and then a 

 portion of the blood passes into the first milk well, the over- 

 flow passing to a second well, sometimes to a third and oc- 

 casionally to a fourth or a fifth well, and such veins are known 



[49] 



