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
“1. The breed modifies the quantity and quality of milk production. This
is so manifestly true that it needs no argument. A particular order
and class of escutcheon indicates a different quantity and a different
quality of milk on a Jersey than it indicates on an Ayrshire cow.
“2. The condition of care and feed to which different families of
the same breed have been accustomed during long periods modify milk
production, and must be taken into consideration. For instance, certain
families of Short-Horns have been cared for and fed through several
generations with the sole view of beef production; other families have
been trained to milk production. Escutcheons upon the former indicate far
less quantity of milk than upon the latter. Thus some families with very
fine escutcheons give very little milk. The escutcheons in such cases
no doubt indicate an original capacity that a few generations of proper
treatment might awaken and develop.
“3. The capacity and health of the digestive organs modifies the
quantity, and we also think the quality, of milk production. Cows with
large, healthy digestive organs will eat and properly digest more food,
and give good return at the pail, than one with opposite conditions of
the digestive organs. The former may sometimes give the larger quantity
of milk, though, indeed, possessed of the poorer escutcheon.
“4. The activity of the nervous system materially affects milk
production. This is often seen when the animal is unduly excited. The
quiet dispositioned cow that attends to feeding, and is not disturbed by
any excitement in the herd or in the surrounding fields, may have the
poorer escutcheon, yet give larger quantities of milk than the extremely
excitable cow, with the better escutcheon.
“Other conditions will suggest themselves to the observing and reflecting
man, that materially affect the quantity and quality of milk production.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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