How to Select Cows: or, The Guenon system simplified, explained, and practically appliedHazard, Willis P. (Willis Pope)
Science
How to Select Cows: or, The Guenon system simplified, explained, and practically applied
Hazard, Willis P. (Willis Pope)
Cattle -- Judging; Cows; Dairy cattle
“There is a sign that may be mentioned here, (though it does not properly
belong to the Guenon system,) which is a very certain evidence that a
cow will give a large quantity of milk, though it expresses nothing in
relation to quality. It is the large size of the vein running forward
from the udder, on the belly, and just under the skin. This is called the
milk vein, and when it is very large and crooked, and enters the abdomen
through a hole that will allow the entrance of a man’s finger, it is, I
repeat, a sign that the cow will yield a large quantity of milk.
“The time that a cow will continue to milk after she is with calf, varies
in different cases—some ceasing almost as soon as pregnant, and others
milking up to calving. Generally the best milkers milk the longest. Hence
it follows, that a good escutcheon usually indicates continued flow as
well as large quantity. Those escutcheons that are not large at the base,
but that run up to the vulva symmetrical all the way, and pretty wide,
indicate a yield of milk up to the time of calving.”
[Illustration: A PERFECT COW—DUCHESS—Imported Jersey, belonging to Chas.
L. Sharpless.]
Our Mode of Judging Stock.
The beauty of the Guenon system is, that _it is an aid to all other modes
of selecting stock_, and therefore, it gives a decided advantage to the
person who understands it over the one who does not. For instance, let
two buyers go into a herd, and let them be equal judges of stock, one of
them will be very apt to buy a bastard, while the other one would very
positively leave her alone, simply because the latter has a knowledge
of the best and surest mode of all modes of judging stock. And this
knowledge does not prevent him from using his half a dozen other modes of
deciding its merits, but aids them. So, too, in selecting a bull for a
propagator, the believer in Guenon will select one with a good escutcheon
and a fine skin, while the other will decide almost entirely by the form.
And so with calves, the one who selects calves by the Guenon marks will
be pretty sure to have a dairy of productive cows, while the other will
have to dispose of some unprofitable ones. The one makes money, because
he is working intelligently with every light of science, while the other
is only _guessing_ pretty well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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