The Viewpoint of the Practising Veterinarian

Extract

I agree profoundly with what Dr. Stableforth and Mr. Macpherson have said. There are, however, some points on which I would like to elaborate. The most important is the question of management. The sooner farmers fully realise the great importance of management, the sooner the control of mastitis will be effected. The question of management is inevitably one of personnel and the training of that personnel.

To-day there are fewer people than ever who can milk a cow efficiently by hand. The time has arrived when the veterinary surgeon will tell you that he would rather control mastitis in a machine-milked herd than in a hand-milked herd. That is not entirely due to the fact that you can thus eliminate the handling of the udder. It is simpler to train a man to use a machine efficiently than to hand-milk efficiently. There is no question whatsoever but that the handling of the cow's teats is a most important factor; and in machine milking the elimination of hand stripping is not only practical but is a most important contribution to avoiding transmission of infection. But more can be done.