OCR Text |
Show o VALUE OP BULL ASSOCIATIONS A standard cooperative dairy bull association is a group of dairy farm-srs farm-srs organized for the joint ownership, i-sfi and exchange of three or more '.airy bulls. Each hull represents a unit or block of the association an-! the bulb are rated each two-ycaf period. The plan was introduced and has been fostered in this country with tho assumed purpose that it would furnish to the members higher high-er quality bulls at a minimum co:u, especially to tho.se whose herds are loo small to justify purchasing bulls of the same or eiual quality. Investment in ;bull? for each man was rehired from Ighty-two dollrs jbeforo organization to sixty-cipht ; dollars after organization for those men previously owning 'bulla. The .cost for each cow was reduced from ?8.0J to G.6S. 'This was c-Jinpuicd I with no 'bull rotations or exchajigc-j, each rotation or exchange of bull:; reducing this in proportion to the number of exchange?. The data to dale indicates that approximately ap-proximately six years of service on the average will ho obtained from each bull, thereby reducing the cost rrom eighty-two dollars to S22.66 or seventy-two per cent for each man and from eight dollars to $2.22, or seventy-one per cent for each cow, for those previously owning bulls. Previous to organization 'fifty-nine per cent of all of the menrbers were using beef bulls, twelve per cent were using grade bulls and: twenty-nine twenty-nine per cent of all .were using pure bred dairy bulls, or all bully displaced dis-placed only 7.7 per cent were out cf iows with butterfat records, while, eighty-two per cent of the association hulls were out of cows with average records of C3S lbs. of butterfat. The Jlhcr eighteen per cent of the bulls were out of cows with good seven or thirty-day records, or out of cows with no records but the grandams which had giood production records. Therefore, better bulls were supplied for less money.. The capital invested in bulls was under less risk since before' -organization each was owned- by ons dairyman, dairy-man, whereas after organization each bull represented four dai-y farmers on the average. Maintenance Mainte-nance cost tor each hull was reduced. Before organization the maintr. ;nce cost of each bull was charged to cue dairyman owning ten cows, whereas after organization it was charged to four dairymen owning thirty-three cows. The cost of maintaining individually in-dividually owned bulls averages ?49.82 for each farmer, or -$4.44 a cow, while maintaining associaTuon bulls costs on the average of $103, and $3.41 for each -cow, the association associa-tion maintenance being approximately approximate-ly fifty per cent higher for each bull but -twenty-two .per cent less for each cow. Dull associations tend to standardize standard-ize hcrdts to one breed. At the time of organization forty-nine per cent of the cows were of Oie same breed as. the association hulls but after operating op-erating an average of four years this was Increased to seventy-three per cent. Of 455 herds, twenty-nine per cent were standardized', to ona breed in the beginning. In Tour years 14 per cent of the other herds were completely standardized. Heifer calves sired iby association bulls sold for $9.25 more a calf than calves by other hulls in the same communities-. The production of eighty-live daughters of twenty-five association bulls was 77.2 lbs. of butterfat, or 25.2 per cent greater than that of 'the dams. Bull csocin-tions csocin-tions tend to develop better da.'ry practices such as "tuberculin testing, membership in -dairy herd improvement improve-ment associations, 'better feeding and management. |