FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 209 



0.05 per cent in the milk and fat through steady milking by 

 the same man. This is so little as to be almost negligible. 



Frequency 



The oftener a cow is milked, within certain limits, the 

 greater the production. This accounts for the fact that 

 many cows on test for the advanced registry or register of 

 merit are milked oftener than is the practice with the or- 

 dinary herd. The increase that may be expected by milking 

 three times a day instead of twice has not yet been definitely 

 determined. While some estimate the increase as high as 

 25 per cent, experiments at Beltsville show the average in- 

 crease in the yield of good cows for short periods (40 days) 

 to be about 12 per cent. Preliminary figures also show the 

 increase for long periods (one year) to be about 18 per 

 cent. The cows milked three times a day were more per- 

 sistent in their yield of milk than those milked twice a day. 



The amount of increase due to more frequent milking 

 seems to be dependent upon the quantity of production and 

 the capacity of the udder. When the udder becomes much 

 distended, milk secretion is checked, and if the production 

 and udder capacity are such that this occurs on twice a day 

 milking, a greater percentage increase may be obtained 

 by milking threei times than would be obtained by an extra 

 milking of cows with larger udders. Similar experiments 

 comparing three and four times a day milking for short 

 periods show an increase of slightly over 6 per cent by milk- 

 ing four times. 



In a few dairies all the cows are milked three times a 

 day; in a few others only some of the higher producers are 

 milked three times a day. The economy of milking more 

 than twice a day is a matter which must be figured out by 

 the individual dairyman from the actual cost of the extra 

 milking and the value of the product, bearing in mind that 

 approximately 1 pound more of concentrated feed will be 

 required for each 2 or 3 pounds of extra milk produced. 

 In the absence of more extended experimental data, one can 

 safely estimate the increase in production for short periods, 

 from milking three times a day, as 12 per cent more than 



