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Show DAIRYMEN ADVISED; TO CULL HERDS TO MEET HAY SHORTAGE The 1931 yearbook of the department depart-ment of Agriculture says, "Culling out the lowest 3 per cent of the cows would eliminate approximately 1 per cent of the total production." In most of the good dairy sections of Utah dairymen have been urged to cull their herds for some time. Right now that stimulus should be emphasized more than ever. Continued hot dry weather is have-ing have-ing a bad effect on the pastures and many farmers should start to feed some supplement to keep the cows' production as unifornt as possiblg. When the pasture gets short and dry, the cows gradually drop down in their milk and get so thin that they have no reserve on their bodies. This condition con-dition cannot he corrected in a few days of good feeding later but takes many months and usually the cows will not come back in production until un-til they calve again. Dairymen who are having the milk from their cows tested regularly know which ones are the low producers pro-ducers that can easily be eliminated from the herds. Those who do not have a regular weight and test on their cows might get a good idea of those to cull by weighing the milk for only one day. If the average daily yield of milk for the highest month is 15 to 20 pounds the cow should produce from 3500 to 4500 pounds in a year. Thirty to thirty-five pounds daily should get 6500 to 7500 pounds annually. Sixty to sixty-five pounds per day should be near 13000 to 14, 000 pounds per year. The above estimates are from herds that are pretty well fed throughout the year and milked twice a day. Most any dairyman should take time to weigh his milk for at least one day and do some careful figuring to try and determine the class his cows come in. It is very bad and uneconomical practice to starve or half-feed good milking dairy cows. Such practice, gets only enought milk to partly pay for the feed. Good cows should be fed full rations so as to make a profit and poor cows should not be fed at all. ' ' This year more than ever before, dairymen should have a close check on their total amount of feed and numlber of livestock. Attempting to carry two cows on the feed that should go to one accomplishes very little as it is mostly used up for maintenance main-tenance of the two cows. If this same feed was fed to one good cow she could produce enough milk to make some profit for her owner. Do not start through the winter with just enough feed to maintain a herd of cows to spri'ng and make no profit above feed, but cut the herd down so that those kept can be properly fed and produce a profit above feed. Average size Holstein cows producing pro-ducing 300 pounds or more of butter fat per year will repuire 20 to 30 lbs. of hay per day and 4 to 5 pounds of grain. Young animals and dry cows can get along on 8 to 10 pounds of hay per day and 2 to 3 pounds of grain. Two to three pounds of corn sileage will replace one pound of hay in a cow's ration. Five and one-half to six and one-half pounds of wet beet pulp equeals one pound of alfalfa hay. Two and one -half to three lbs. of pea vine silage equeals one pound of hay. Many sections have cheap grain and this can be used to replace alfalfa hay very readily. One pound of a mixture of western grains will replace one and one-half pounds of alfalfa hay. If alfalfa is worth $10.00 per ton, barley is worth 80c per hundred, hund-red, wheat 81c, cornSOe, oats 70c, wheat bran 60c per hundred pounds as feed for dairy cows. Farmers can use the various grains this year and reduce the amount of hay that is usually fed. With corn silage and grain properly fed, cows might produce pro-duce very satisfactorily on 8 to 12 pounds of alfalfa per day. A year like this it might be a good policy to sell some of the fat yearling year-ling or two year old heifers. If the herd is mostly full of. good cows that are returning something every day the heifers could possibly be sacrificed sacri-ficed now when they are fat and have some value rather than carry them into in-to the winter when they will become so thin that they cannot produce profitably pro-fitably or sell for anything on the market. Heifer calves and short yearlings year-lings that are small can be carried on much less feed than the larger heifers and they will be growing into cows to fill in the herd next year. The price of dairy products the past few months has been very discourag ing to the producers. This with the i possibility of increased feed costs do ! not make as favorable an outlook as one would like to see at this time. There are possibilities of the prices 1 getting better in the western section. The drought has caused a marked decrease de-crease in the production and it is estimated that there has been a' 27 per cent increase in the per capita, consumption of dairy prodocts. Butter prices the past ninety days have been lower than for many years. The past week, however, the prices have advanced ad-vanced 3 or 4 cents in the west. This should be very encouraging to the producers at this time and there are possibilities of higher prices during the next few months. Granting the cost of production is out of line with the price of butterfat, the dairy farmer who properly culls I his cows for production and practices economical sufficient feeding should make some money during the next year. Considering the fertility value of the manure, from a herd of dairy cows, that is the foundation of permanent per-manent crop production one should consider seriously the long time farming farm-ing program. Cull the herd in proportion proport-ion to your feed for the season of 1931 and 1932 but do not hamper your dairy program for a long period. |