A VIEW ON WOOL IN HEALTH OF SHEEP

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28702, 27 September 1958, Page 9

A VIEW ON WOOL IN HEALTH OF SHEEP

[Today we publish the third of a series of four articles written by a North Canterbury foothills sheepfarmer with 34 years’ experience in handling and breeding sheep. In this one be gives his views on wool in relation to the health of the sheep.] If a sheep’s worst enemy is another sheep, then another pound* of wool on a weak sheep is a dose of poison. . The show judges who are almost always stud breeders, consistently award the championships in nearly all the main breeds to the most heavily woolled sheep These sheep are all right on a stud farm, but it is building up trouble for the farmer if,, be tries to breed healthy stock from such sheep. There is a direct connexion between heavily woolled rams and ill-thrift in lambs. If you doubt this, do as the writer has done, cross a light-woolled ram

(very hard to obtain in Canterbury) with some of the ewes in a heavily woolled flock, putting the remainder of the ewes to heavily woolled rams, and then observe the difference.

Let us approach the problem < from another angle: the diseases of the present day were largely un- . known 50 years ago on Canter- : bury sheep farms; largely un- : known, too, was the wool-blind i sheep with a dense heavy fleece. Not being old enough to remember, I can only quote from the figures and photographs of the period. Recently, in "The Press,” a sheep man was quoted as saying that the average wool weight then was about 81b per sheep. Evidence to support this contention is found in photographs from the various magazines and stock books. A New Zealand Year Book of 1908 shows photographs of Romney and Southdown rams with very much less wool on body aAI points than is acceptable to judges today. The 1924-1930 issues of the “New Zealand Farmer,” some of which are in my possession, show similar photographs. Optimum Weight What then, you may ask, is the optimum weight and coverage of wool we should strive to breed on to our sheep? Well, there is a breed in England, the Wiltshire Horn, the rams of which grow no wool at all, and the ewes very little. This breed is said to be very popular; for crossing to produce quickgrowing lambs. It stands as a

rebuke to the misguided efforts of many sheep men who are endeavouring to produce a maximum amount of wool and lambs from the same sheep, and then when the animal breaks down under the strain, they blame the Government—represented in this case by the Department of Agriculture.

The French have a proverb: “Beware of the wrath of the sheep,” and that is just what we have failed to do in Canterbury in recent years.

The writer has a 10-year plan to breed a sheep carrying no more than 4 or 51b of wool at shearing time, and less, if it is possible to produce such a sheep. The advantages of light-woolled sheep are many, but as we are discussing wool in relation to health, I will confine my remarks to that aspect only at present. First of all, a scantily-clad sheep has less trouble at lambing and and the lamb is stronger. Then, during that critical 'first winter, a light-woolled hogget will survive when others die. They will breed better as two-tooths and rear better lambs and are not cast or caught up so readily. Then, as old ewes they last longer and are fattened more readily for the butcher. All this is purely relative And can at no point be called an exact science.

Drafting Weak Sheep Speaking of wool in relation to disease, I always claim I can draft the weak sheep in any flock, in an ordinary drafting race just by the appearance of the wool on the top of the head. There is nearly always a close connexion between the wool-blind type of sheep in any breed and the incidence of footrot and ill-thrift. The reason for this is not, of course, the wool, but the fact that such a heavily woolled sheep is nearly always easily checked by rigorous conditions and, after such a check, readily picks up germs and develops a diseased condition which persists in spite of treatment. The only successful remedy is to breed a much healthier kind of sheep. There is no single cause of disease among sheep, but rather a complex situation has arisen in which disease flourishes, and the remarks on wool can, of course, deal with only a part of that situation. Only practical men, who shear their own sheep as well as handle them in every other way frequently, can properly assess the governing factors in the relation of wool to health in their . flocks.