Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (June 15, 1961)
This dairy farm is typical of many improved operations in the Midwest. Old stanchion lines are no longer suffi cient to handle larger, expanded herds. Raised, walk through milking parlors have been added to permit faster milking and less back work for the operator. Dairy farms with herds like this can often produce twice as much net profit per man as formerly. C hanges in breeding . . . changes in feeding . . . changes in milking . . . changes in marketing . . . and, above all, changes in management — these have been compounded one on top of another until today’s dairyman has little resemblance to his counterpart of a generation ago. Take the matter of breeding, for example. More than a third of the dairy cows of this nation have never seen a bull because they’ve been bred artificially. Artificial breeding in turn has made it possible to breed to proven dairy sires — bulls whose transmitting ability for dairy production is certain because they have already been tested. One of the nation’s largest artificial insemination organizations figures that the use of proved sires will jump production at least a thousand pounds per cow per year on daughter and dam comparisons. Frozen semen can extend the useful life of a bull al most indefinitely. Tranquilizers and hormones are chang ing the timetable in the field of animal biology. Sexed semen, so new it is not yet commercially available, will make it possible to buy a heifer or bull as you desire when your cow is bred artificially. In the matter of feeds, hay wafers and hay pellets, complete rations with roughage mixed in with the pro tein supplements are all available now. One of the most fundamental differences in feeding today has been the general lowering of the protein ration by progressive dairymen from 16% to a 13% level. New methods of stor ing hay and grain, some of it directly in air-tight silos, make it possible to get more nutrients from the roughage. As for cow milking, perhaps that has changed most of all. No longer is it a stoop and squat job in a damp, dark and poorly ventilated bam. Instead, modem pic ture window parlors make it possible for dairymen to en joy the scenery outside, get the benefits of natural lighting, and generally have a pleasant place to work. Such in stallations now in use are paying handsome rewards to the dairyman. Cows are elevated so they are convenient to milk. Feeding is done automatically by augers, and pipeline milkers have taken over where the old bucket used to ring. A new low line milking system that lets milk flow downhill to the tank solves many old problems of sanitation and rancidity. Modem milking machines make it possible for one man to milk 75 cows instead of the usual 10 or 15. With a high-producing herd and com Eletely modem setup, one man can produce in the neigh orhood of a million pounds of milk a year, in addition to feeding and caring for the cows. Dairying is becoming highly specialized. To stay in business, a man must have enough cows to justify the cost of modern equipment. Good labor is no longer avail able so equipment is the necessary substitute. Cows for merly produced 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of milk annually; now they’re producing 10,000, 12,000, 13,000 and more. Six hundred pound butterfat herd averages are no longer uncommon. • The big changes are going on now. How much? How fast? No one knows, for sure. But, these are the trends. This is the way dairying will move. mm Out in the world by herself without her shell to protea her with the potent help of Terramycin* Poultry Formula When chicks come out of the shell, they’re on their own. Best thing you can do.is give them a head start against disease with Terramycin Poultry Formula with Anti-Germ 77®. Put it in the drinking water before they arrive: Broad-range Terramycin fights disease organisms inside chicks—in the blood and in the digestive tract. Anti-Germ 77 kills drinking-water germs. Inexpensive way to protect your investment—Ter Iramycin Poultry Formula, the potent way to help fight early mortality and get chicks started off fast. When you REALLY want results use potent Terramycin Terramycin’s effectiveness against an unusually wide range of disease organisms gives your birds the pro tection they need. It is effective against many primary and secondary organisms that narrow-spectrum anti biotics, sulfas and other drugs can miss completely ... an added benefit of Terramycin that’s especially important under field conditions.