AT LAMB-MARKIUG TIME.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 204, 27 August 1909, Page 7

AT LAMB-MARKIUG TIME.

PAST 11. ■After all the lambs have been picked cut of the pen, marked, and dropped e T er into the paddock again, the ewes should be allowed to run out into the btddock from the catching pen, and ftev should be counted as they go. 1 Irill presently give a simple rule for Inding out the percentage of lambs to In Spring it will probably b 3 found ttat the ewes have scoured more or less an tha young grass, and that some of rtcm have become daggy and dirty. IVhen the sheep are penned up for lamb booking a good chance ia afforded of removing some of the dags, which would otherwise be a nuisance and source of loss at shearing time, while detrimental to the welfare of the ewe in the meantime. It is therefore advisa ble to have a pair of shears handy, sp that the worst sheep in each pen full may he picked out' and crutched, after the lambs have been marked nnd let On many places an extra man is Provided for this work, and if so it will save tinie if a few more hurdles are added to the yard making material. A small yard can then be erected against the catching pen, so that the ewes, after the lambs have been docked, may be run + T ° the caching P en into the crunching pen. The crutdier may then work in comfort while another penfull of ewes and lambs are fcebig fone through by the markers. A good crutchcr will manage to take something off almost every ewe, if this method is adopted. Of course only the actual dirt should be taken off. As little wool as possible should bo removed with the dirt because it will enly he wasted. It will be seen that with the ewes running straight out of ith'e yards to the lambs, the mothering up process is carried out almost immediately. If the ewes have been kept in fpr some time they will probably go straight away and get a feed before bothering with their lambs. It is a mistake therefore to make the operatipn a, lojig one. A quiet dog, moving (lowly backwards and forwards a few chains from the yards will keep the ewes from -wandering too far should they show a tendency of doing so. As the receiving yard gets emptier, it wiil he found more and more difficult to drive the remaining: ewes and lambs Into tie catching pen, A decoy sheep should be tied on one of the top corners of the catching pen. A thy sheep should be used for this purpose. A good planj ta°i is to have a piece of netting, dragged by a couple of met., behind tho mob, thereby stopping a rush •backwards when the catching pen has fosen, reacljecl. I find! this method most Useful. Some prefer to sub-divide the leceiving yard when the mob gets small, but if a piece of netting be used in the manner' I have indicated, the work of yarding the tail end of the mob into the catching pen will be found quite easy.

It will now be quite in keeping to (ay a few words about lambing percentages. It is important that there should be a recognised system with regard to compulsory lambing percentages. Of course, no matter what kind of system is employed the actual number of la.rn.bs will remain the same, but for purposes of comparison and of interest it is well that a uniform meth-1 o4 shovdd be adopted. One hears of such "big tallies nowaday;—l2o, 140, and even 190 per cent—that a tally like 100 per cent is but little thought of. It will ha easily seen that if the dry ewes are drawn out where lambing is going an, the percentage at lamb docking is hound to' be a big one. On the other hand, if the number of ewes which go to the ram are taken, the percentage way be made lower than it really is. The usual method, and the faire.°t is to count all the ewes got in at dpoking time, both wet and dry. If hoggets and wethers are mixed together, it is quite legitimate and proper to count them out. The ewes should be counted as they Tun out of the matching pen after the lambs have been picked out and marked. The lambs tails should be counted into little heaps of ten or twenty each. If, for any reason, a tail has heon left on a lamb, a severed tail Ehould he immediately cut in two in order to keep the tally correct. For the benefit of those -who sometimes find it rather difficult to work out their percentages, I will give a simple rule for getting the percentage. To the number of the lambs add two ciphers, ?r noHghta, then multiply by 100, tnen divide by th 9 number of ewes. For instance, supposing you have 3QQ ewes, and the, count of tne lambs' tails totals 315:—Add two noughts to 315— the number of the lambs—and you have 81,500; divide by 300—the number of the ewes—and you will find that the result is 105. Therefore, 105 per cent Is the docking tally of your mob of SOP ewes. A few lqmbs will probably come, the tailing has been finished. These will come under the hand at shearing time, and should b e "doctored" then. They should not be allowed, to escape, as they may causa trouble later on. It maybe that at shearing some of the ram lambs have attained to * good size. If so, it is advisable not to pull the testicles out in the man- • SK indicated ahove. The lambs may, •W course, not be damaged by so doP&\ but the chances are that the opera■:«on will he too rough on them if earned uut in that way. The safest plan «j to cut the tip off the purse, and force the stones up as before described. Then m ake an incision in each stone about «n inch long from the top of Urn stone. ** Will be then seen that there is a *! n * & skin covering the testicle, and Wat this skin is attached to the long Rtags Which reach into the animals Way. If the testicle be literally skinin 4I may be ta - ker ' out without drawing these strings, and tiie operation will W gut little noticed by the lambs. In WM> shearing time the yards are dusty, and there is a danger of blood poison- ;•% hut one has to run the risk. It « a safeguard to dress the raw parts TOO an antiseptic solution. In ordin--8 y times, however, temporary yards ■noyod from paddock to paddock make «fri.f WgM pf blpod Poisoning a very ♦rST ° ne > especially if the operating 'Mis be sterilised in boiling watnr after eaoh day's work. I have heard, however, of a farmer , ", Sot olood-poisoning among his mm, and they were affected by it even B, . T rked in y in the paddocks. •fri fi resource to the searing iron, »na the mortality ceased. As this method is taking the place of the knife ■ parts of the North Island, it will conn! 10 PUt of P^ ce t0 *W » few words for fi. mg lL The e Mge is being made in a rftT f? ' 4 /. ea§o «- The talk. U le" ■ ■ anty condition, is liable to convey M germ of blood-poisoning, and, as 1 SSL% *. Ud out ' the dust *»* dir t » Prinl. 0 , injUf y- But thi3 not the X wrapil reason for using the Bearing

iron for taking off the tail, because the' knife has to be used on ram lambs in any case. The searing iron is used in order |hat lambs may be docked without an undue, loss of blood. The lops of blood is supposed to give them a big check, and this is instanced by tho fact that ewe lambs fatten m.u,ch. quicker than wether la-mbs while they arc on their mothers. The wethers have lost more blood than the ewes. In some pa.rts of England lambs intended for the butcher are nqt docked at all, because they receive too great a set-back. There is, however, something to be said in favour of this loss of blpqd in certain cases, and I cannot do better than Mr. Gilruth, our late chief veterinarian, in this connection: "When lamlbs are about six weeks old they begin to eat grass. This, in addition to a large supply of milk, produces too much Blood, and caused death by apoplexy. In order to prevent this, the tails should be cut when the lambs were two to three weeks old. The result of this would be the loss of a certain amount of blood, and it would be wise to leave the tails a little bit long, in case, it be found necessary to repeat the operation should symptoms of apoplexy become apparent." If the searing iron is preferred to the knife in taking the tails off, it may be advisable, in the light of Mr. Gilruth's advice, to cut the tails off the big, fat lambs, which -would be the most subject to apoplexy, using the searing iron on the smaller animals.

Searing irons "may be made either dl iron or copper. The latter is preferable because it retains the heat better.. They are shaped like wedges, about two inches wide, with a handle about fifteen inches long. The docking place has a, board fixed so that the lamb can be held with its tail resting on the board. The iron, when hot, is simply presse-d down on the tail, and the tail severed very quickly. There is practically no bleeding, except whon the iron is too hot. One heating will be sufficient for half-a-dozen tails, and there should be two irons to each operator. The heating may be done with a fire in an ordinary oil drum, with an aperature cut in the side near tha bottom, so that the irons can be stuck in the fire. Spme holes should be knocked in the drum to supply the fire with air. The fire drum 6hould be placed on a stand so that the operator do.es) pot need to bend down too low when reaching for and attending to his irons. When the irons are used in preference to the Knife, the expense of lamb-marking is incrased, and the work cannot be done quite so expeditiously, but if they are superior to the knife they will become more extensively used than they are at present. There is a danger that if they be made too hot they may injure the anus of the lamb, and this should be guarded against. |