Though average prices of pedigree cattle to-day are settling down to a reasonable level, record prices are still being made for all breeds of pedigree cattle; buyers have apparently never been so keen to pay for good stock, and yet it still needs a brave man to gamble his money in the pedigree saleyard.
For gamble indeed it is in many cases. Any man who has bought stock at collective sales of pedigree cattle in recent years will speak with deep feeling when the subjects of udder warranties, tuberculin tests, and shy breeding are mentioned.
In spite of modern safeguards and the admirable trend of some pioneers towards the frank catalogue, I am not alone when I say that I always experienced a weakness about the knees for some days after a purchase at a pedigree sale. Snags are still far more common than pleasant surprises when the new cow is put to a working test at home.
The so-called udder warranty is perhaps the greatest culprit. Some of my own experiences in buying illustrate the anomalies of present sale rules in this respect and will, I hope, show how the udder warranty conditions could give a fairer deal to the buyer without bringing any hardship on the reputable vendor.
I have bought cows with udders and teats warranted sound, but which have not survived the journey home in good order.
Against this there is no protection and apparently no possibility of redress.
The rules of several breed societies contain a clause requiring a guarantee that any cow in-calf or in-milk, or any heifer in-milk, is sound in udder and teats at the time of sale, but admitting no claim in respect thereof which is not made within one hour of the close of the sale.
1. Coming in for milking. S. Mayall's Pimhill herd which is managed on lines advocated by the author
2. Long-lived families which have bred consistently are the best source of foundation stock. Five generations in the Ayrshire herd of S. Mayall. Pimhill Sarah heads a family line
To expect anyone to give a sound judgment on the condition of an udder that has been stocked for eighteen hours, in the harassing conditions of the average saleyard is, of course, fantastic. The cow must be got home and given at least two milkings before she can fairly be judged in the udder.
I have closely examined the udders of cows I was intending to buy. Where there has been only slight suspicion of thickening in the milk passage, or a little lightness in one quarter, and I have particularly liked the cow, I have taken the risk.
In any case, I was then experimenting on my treatment for mastitis and was satisfied that I could cure them if they did go wrong.
Surely enough, some have gone wrong. I have had cows with a suspicion of thickening in the udder before the sale, but which, confident in the udder warranty, I have purchased, only to find them giving filthy milk at the first milking on arrival home. Others that I suspected to be slightly light in one quarter, have gone wrong in that quarter within a few days of arrival home.
That I was able to treat them does not alter the fact that such cases do not give a square deal to the buyer. For cost of treatment is not anticipated in the purchase of expensive pedigree cattle.
Expert examination has sometimes revealed obvious cases of longstanding mastitis which had presumably been treated and rendered temporarily ineffective. The trouble remained dormant only to break out under the strain of stocking the udder, followed by a long train journey.
Where complaints have been made immediately the cattle were home, the auctioneers naturally reminded me of the 'conditions of sale'. The reputation of vendors proves to be no safeguard. When complaints are passed to them, they merely need affirm that the udders were sound when they left the farm or the saleyard, and their responsibility is ended, unless legal action is taken and misrepresentation proved.
What is the buyer to do in such a case? It is surely wrong that all the burden of such a loss should be on the unfortunate buyer, who, in such cases, cannot possibly have any part in the causation of the udder trouble.
Conditions of sale ruling at most auctions to-day encourage the breeder to use them for the disposal of his duds. If the cattle can survive the hour after the sale the vendor has succeeded in passing his dud and the buyer has no redress. If the buyer were allowed to have the cow on his farm for just one day there would be reasonable time to give the udder a working test and place the blame for any defect where it rightly belongs.
Complaints arising from such a procedure would react unfavourably only on the habitual seller of unsound udders. For udders do not suddenly become rotten with mastitis overnight. Any outbreak of mastitis within twenty-four hours of a sale is certain to have existed in the udder at the time of, or before the sale. It is therefore reasonable that the seller, not the buyer, should be the loser, or at least share the loss.
In any case most mastitis is of deeper seated origin than the mere mechanical infection by external bacteria, and cases such as I have described are almost certain to be the result of previous bad management, or breeding which has predisposed the animal to mastitis.
Many young farmers are starting new pedigree herds at the present time and breed societies would do well to turn their attention to the satisfaction of these newcomers, instead of watching mainly the interests of their council members who are normally all established vendors themselves.
Present prices of livestock are quite high enough to allow for any financial disadvantage likely to result for the vendor from a change of sale rules. Buyers of pedigree stock at least deserve sound stock, if not value for money, in return for the abnormally high prices which some of them have had to pay in recent years. Under existing sale rules, high prices are not the guarantee of sound stock that one would expect them to be.
How can this state of affairs be made more equitable?
There are two modifications of present conditions of sale which would go a long way towards levelling the balance of risk between vendor and buyer, and so help to eliminate the disgruntled buyer who can be no advertisement to any breed society.
(1) An extension of the time allowed for the lodging of complaints to at least twenty-four hours (or alternatively the length of time necessary to enable the buyer to get the cow home and milk her at least once).
(a) The prohibition of udder stocking, making it illegal for a cow to be left unmilked for more than six hours before the sale.
Even such small changes as I have suggested take a long, long time. For most breed societies are governed entirely by the vendor member. In the meantime the newcomer is buying trouble.
3. The author with one of his prize-winning cows and her twenty-minute-old calf. A healthy cow takes calving in her stride
4. Mr. Newman Turner with the newly born calf of a fifteen-year-old Jersey cow in his herd. Good old cows make reasonably priced foundation stock
There is one simple safeguard which will help the buyer to avoid buying mastitis. If a few small pieces of bromochresol paper (available from any chemist's shop) are carried to the sale and a drop of the milk—or pre-calving 'honey'— from each quarter of any cow which may be purchased is tested on the paper—udder trouble can be detected before it is evident to the human eye. Such a simple precaution may save the expense and trouble of litigation which is the only way of redress when udder trouble is not detected before the cow leaves the saleyard.
The foregoing criticism of buying pitfalls applies mainly to England and Wales. Conditions of sale, I am told, in most parts of Scotland gives almost unfair advantage to the buyer over the vendor, or exposer as he is called north of the border.
Perhaps this explains the rapid spread of the Ayrshire; for it is possible to buy a newly calved cow, get her home to the south of England, and have a day in which to test her udder before complaints need be registered.
It will show the example which our breed societies need, if I quote some of the conditions of sale prevailing in the south-west of Scotland.
Firstly, the condition relating to udder warranty, which is the one which gives most cause for complaint in our English pedigree sales:
'Calved cows and heifers. Purchasers must intimate, in writing, to the Auctioneers within three days of purchase any complaint as to the vessel or teats ...'
This warranty not only relates to the condition of the teats and udder, but to the quietness of the cow to milk. How some of our wartime milking staffs would have been glad of cows coming into the herds under such a warranty of quietness.
The following is the rule taken from the catalogue of a show and sale held at Annan, Dumfriesshire:
'Animals sold for dairy purposes, heifers carrying first calf excepted, shall be held to be warranted by the exposer as correct in their vessels, and teats and quiet to milk unless mention shall be made at the time of sale to the contrary.'
The warranty even extends to cows that have not yet calved. This means that it is possible to buy a cow before calving, at a stage when it is difficult to judge the likely condition of the udder after calving, and to have an assurance of the soundness of her udder up to three days after calving. The rule reads:
"Calving Cows. Complaints of unsoundness of vessel and teats must be made, in writing, not later than three days after calving, to the Auctioneers.''
If there is a breed society in England, with sale rules that offer a guarantee of udder soundness with an in-calf animal, that extends to three days after calving, then I would like to know of it.
Credit is certainly due to the man who has the courage to sell cows with such refreshing assurance. For the practice is all too common of cows that have given trouble in a previous lactation being offered for sale a short time before they are due to calve, at a time when it is difficult for an expert, let alone a newcomer to pedigree cattle buying, to detect a faulty udder.
So that there shall be no uncertainty about the safeguards which are insisted upon by the auctioneers in these Scottish sales, the warranty is further elaborated in the following rule:
'Back Calvers and Spring Calvers. All animals sold as such are warranted in-calf and correct in their vessels unless otherwise stated. Exposers must intimate to the Auctioneers at the time of sale if the animal is still milking. No claim will be entertained unless any complaint is intimated in writing to the auctioneers by the purchaser, in respect of animals giving milk, within three days after date of sale and in respect of dry animals three days after calving.'
What a pleasure it must be to buy udders with such guarantee of soundness; for it is the udder after all which is paid for. A cow with one bad quarter is less than half a cow, and a cow with two bad quarters is no cow at all!
The breed society that will give England a lead by following this admirable example of Scottish straightforwardness will earn the heartfelt gratitude of hundreds of bewildered cattle buyers, who are attending the pedigree cattle sales to-day, money in hand, prepared to pay high prices for really sound stock, but who too often come home to find they have bought a good looker with useless 'tackle'.
Newcomers to pedigree cattle breeding will never succeed on good looks and it will be no more than our English breed societies have deserved if buyers continue to go, in increasing numbers, over the border for their foundation stock.
I know from the letters I have had on this subject that buyers will flock to the first breed society sale that has courage enough to give fair safeguard to the comparative novice (and indeed the hardened veteran too, for even he buys trouble sometimes). And nothing short of the conditions I have quoted from Scotland, will constitute fair safeguard. What we really need, at any rate for pedigree animals entered for sale, is an official 'passport' which records the history of the animal. Farmers are so burdened with bookkeeping and records today that I hesitate to suggest the addition of another. But it would bring such immense benefit to all cattle breeders, that I do urge breed societies to support and actively campaign for its adoption. My suggestion is simple. It is that a life history pedigree form of a type I designed for my own use some years ago, should be entered in the appropriate place on the back by the vet. himself each time he visits a cow, including tuberculin tests (with measurements). Instead of the usual registration certificate issued by breed societies a life history form should be devised and issued on official registration. The extended pedigree with milk records of all females in the pedigree should be shown on one side and on the other, provision for all details in the life of the animal, including every visit of the vet, all milk records with calving dates and all changes of ownership.
When breed societies do perform this necessary service for the buyer, what is going to happen to the doubtful cows that are to-day being offered at pedigree sales?
Well, mastitis can be cured now, simply and surely by the farmer or herdsman himself by the method described on page 127 of this book. There is therefore certainty of bringing a cow back to full milk providing the udder has not been structurally damaged. I am prepared to buy cows suffering from mastitis, providing I know what I am buying and providing the purchase price takes account of the likely cost of treatment.
Therefore why not institute a separate section of the sales for cows that cannot be fully guaranteed in the udder and later for cows which have no life history card. Buyers can then approach the saleyard with complete confidence and pay to the giddy limits of price records for fully warranted cattle and sleep peacefully on the return home in the knowledge that real milk will flow from the udder for the next few weeks at least.
Or buyers can go to the non-guaranteed section and buy at a reasonable price good breeding animals that may be brought home and treated, at a cost that will fall fairly on the vendor and the purchaser.
Is it asking too much that complete confidence should take the place of what amounts to confidence trickery in many cattle sale-yards to-day?
There is still one grave crime in my opinion, which even the Scots have not eradicated, which a life history card could not prevent, and which must be wiped out if udders are to be fairly warranted, and indeed protected against future trouble. That is udder stocking. It is no doubt this practice which is at the root of most udder trouble which immediately follows with animals that have passed through a saleyard. The vendor is blamed for passing off an animal with mastitis, whereas the real culprits are those who fail to prohibit this unnecessary cruelty to the cow as well as to the buyer.
What we need now, is just one auctioneer or breed society with the boldness to open a sale under the rules quoted above, with the addition of a rule prohibiting the stocking of udders for more than six hours. Such an action would be well repaid, in more ways than cash. It has been tried once, at my instigation, but only locally. Will a brave breed society follow on where the story below finishes?
I found a firm of auctioneers interested in establishing complete confidence among its customers, and they were responsible for organizing sales in which we had conditions at any rate, approaching a fair deal for all concerned.
Six years ago as the first Chairman of the South-Western Jersey Breeders' Club I took part in the organization of what I believe was the first sale in the world, at which all in-milk animals were completely milked out before going into the sale ring. This was a Show and Sale, so we were able to give buyers and judges an opportunity of seeing the cows with their udders full, for they were first paraded at 9 a.m. (having been milked out the previous evening), were examined by the judges, then milked out, before the judge made his final placings. This example was followed somewhat half-heartedly, I regret to say, by two breed societies since, yet it is surprising how often a judge has to change the order of placings after the milk has been removed from the udder and it is possible really to examine it unstocked and in the raw.
Our first example gave much confidence to buyers, and removed some of the dangers of damage to the udder resulting from overstocking. Prices realized reflected the support for the effort to establish buyer-confidence.
In September 1950 another Jersey sale was held at Bristol by the same auctioneers, which, in addition to this milking-out condition added even higher standards and went as far as to guarantee the udder for a period of twenty-four hours after the sale (something which I had urged for years but never before achieved), and the complete health of the animal as far as a veterinary surgeon was able to assess beforehand. Minimum production standards far higher than anything ever before set were a condition of entry, and each animal was examined by two prominent judges, Mr. Eric Boston, of the Wilcote herd, and Mr. Bob Carson, of Jersey, who rejected any animal which was not of good Jersey type.
All cows had to have produced at least 450 lb. of butterfat, and bulls were accepted only from dams which had given 525 lb. of fat in a lactation of 305 days. Every animal carried a veterinary certificate of health and had passed the tuberculin test, being from attested herds only, and the agglutination test, showing that it was free from the abortion bacillus.
Support was forthcoming from breeders in all parts of the country with entries of 50 head. A big company of buyers from a wide area filled the sale yard.
At a time when the market had been flooded with Jersey cattle and there had been as many as four or five major sales of Jersey cattle in a week with prices in general at their lowest for many years, public support for the continuation of such special selective sales was indicated in a higher average price than had previously been realized in the south-west of England.
The buyer of pedigree cattle is obviously prepared to pay more for animals which can be guaranteed in every way, which he knows he can take home with reasonable certainty of continued health and productive ability; which hitherto we breeders must admit he has not always been able to do in the past.
Mr. A. R. Taylor, of Yeovil, the auctioneer, is to be congratulated on his repeated efforts to raise the standards of pedigree cattle sales. (Since I wrote the above Mr. Taylor met a tragic death in a motor accident. It is to be hoped that someone will have the courage to carry on his good work.)
I am sure many commercial dairy farmers are deterred from 'going pedigree' by the prices quoted by the weekly farming papers of the collective sales and shows and sales of pedigree animals. I don't know whether the auctioneers themselves or the reporters commissioned by the papers are responsible for the lists of prices quoted after each sale, but the impression is given by quoting only the top prices that no reasonably priced animals are to be found at pedigree sales. The result, I feel sure, is that the commercial farmer who was never more ready to change over to pedigree cattle, just keeps away from pedigree sales and says: 'Pedigree cattle are beyond my pocket.'
While there was a good picking for the breeder-vendor, at the high prices which have been common during and since the war, no doubt the interests of breeders, auctioneers and the farming industry were being served by encouraging the people with money enough for costly animals, to spend it on pedigree cattle. The two large circulation farming weeklies were probably then justified in giving the impression that it was useless to go to a show and sale of pedigree cattle unprepared to spend 200 guineas or more for good animals. But the time has now come when to continue this false impression is doing service to nobody, least of all the vendor. There is now a strong and growing desire among working farmers to launch themselves in the pedigree cattle business. At last the 'average' farmer is convinced that it is as cheap to feed a pedigree animal as it is to feed a mongrel. If these men could know that it is possible to buy useful pedigree cows and heifers at very little more than the prices paid for good commercial attested animals, they would come to the sales at Reading and other centres and pay reasonable prices for the good yielding cow which is not quite up to breeders' standards.
I was at a Jersey Show and Sale recently at which I sat beside a working farmer. He had a milk round which he had decided to supply with farm-bottled Jersey milk. His main concern at this sale was to buy good yielding cows, regardless of their looks. No one would have believed it from the report of the sale, which listed many animals which sold for 150 guineas or more, cows which in most cases were not giving anything startling in the way of milk yields, yet my farmer friend bid his way right through the sale, never paying more than 100 guineas for a cow and by the end of the sale he had bought cows giving a total of 50 gallons of milk daily for an expenditure of £1,000. He had carefully examined all these cows before the sale and was confident that they were all sound. It is, of course, most unlikely that he avoided trouble of any kind, but at least such careful buying at those prices meant that he had little to lose, and practically every single animal would pay its purchase price and a good deal more (at 4s. 8d. a gallon for the milk) long before the end of its lactation.
The information that good milk yielders can be purchased at pedigree sales at reasonable prices has hitherto not been considered news by the farming papers. But if such stories as that of the man who bought 50 gallons of milk a day, for £1,000, at a pedigree Show and Sale and similar stories which may regularly be found at Reading and other pedigree cattle centres, were reported in the farming papers, instead of the old, old story that 500 guineas was exceeded so many times, and that Lord What's-his-name gave 2,000 guineas for a bull, the men who are looking for reasonably priced pedigree animals would roll up. The sales which have in the past tended to be social occasions for business-men-hobby farmers, might instead be opportunities for the commercial farmer to improve his herd.
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