Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Such mirrors are found on most very good cows, but may also be found on cows which can scarcely be called good, and which should be ranked in the next class. But cows, whether having very well-developed mirrors or not, may be reckoned as very good, and as giving as much milk as is to be expected from their size, feed, and the hygienic circumstances in which they are kept, if they present the following characteristics:

Veins of the perineum large, as if swollen, and visible on the exterior, as in [Figs. 29]-[32], or which can be easily made to appear by pressing upon the base of the perineum; veins of the udder large and knotted, milk-veins large, often double, equal on both sides, and forming zig-zags under the belly.

To the signs furnished by the veins and by the mirror may be added also the following marks: A uniform, very large and yielding udder, shrinking much in milking, and covered with soft skin and fine hair; good constitution, full chest, regular appetite, and great propensity to drink. Cows rather inclining to be poor than fat. Soft, yielding skin, short, fine hair, small head, fine horns, bright, sparkling eye, mild expression, feminine look, with a fine neck.

Cows of this first class are very rare. They give, even when small in size, from ten to fourteen quarts of milk a day, and the largest sized from eighteen to twenty-six quarts a day, and even more. Just after calving, if arrived at maturity and fed with good, wholesome, moist food in sufficient quantity and quality, adapted to promote the secretion of milk, they can give about a pint of milk for every ten ounces of hay, or its equivalent, which they eat.

They continue in milk for a long period. The best never go dry, and may be milked even up to the time of calving, giving from eight to twelve quarts of milk a day. The Dutch cow, [Fig. 54], was giving daily twenty-two quarts of milk, a year after calving. But even the best cows often fall short of the quantity of milk they are able to give, from being fed on food that is too dry, or not sufficiently varied, or not rich enough in nutritive qualities, or deficient in quantity.

Fig. 48.

Fig. 49.