Bad Milking Habits 41 



Cows easily contract habits with respect to milk- 

 ing, and often tt^ese habits are very disagreeable and 

 amount to a good deal of loss. Many cows will not 

 "give down" the milk unless they are fed at, or just 

 before, the time of milking. Occasional cows will 

 yield very much more milk for a favorite milker than 

 for a stranger. For this reason it is a common 

 practice, particularly in small herds, that each milker 

 should milk the same cows each day. In large herds, 

 however, where milkers necessarily have to be 

 changed frequently, pains are taken to pre-vent the 

 contraction of any such habits, and the cows are 

 milked indiscriminately, and so have no chance to 

 form an attachment for any particular milker. It is 

 a common opinion among dairymen that milking 

 habits are more easily formed during the first lacta- 

 tion of the heifer, and care is taken that the heifers 

 be milked as well as possible, and that their lactation 

 period be prolonged as closely as possible up to the 

 time of dropping the second calf. There is no dis- 

 advantage in such practice, even if it often fails to 

 yield tangible results. Mechanical milking machines, 

 that have been the subject of so much and so long 

 continued experiment, have now reached practical 

 form, and are being successfully introduced in many 

 large dairies. 



The individual capacity of the cow. No single fact 

 in milk production is of more importance, so far as 

 profit and loss is concerned, than that the cow is a 

 law unto herself in respect to the amount of milk 

 that she can be made to give. Profitable dairying 



