DRY WEATHER AND LAMBS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29016, 3 October 1959, Page 8

DRY WEATHER AND LAMBS

Early Drafting Desirable No worthwhile rain has now fallen over most of Canterbury for nine weeks and the province is again bordering on drought conditions. One thing all prudent farmers should be trying to do under these conditions— and even if it does rain soon —is to keep at least one mob of ewes and lambs thriving at the maximum rate so that some lambs can be drafted fat off the mothers at light weights in November or early December. With early August-born lambs it should be possible, in the light of experience at Canterbury Agricultural College s Ashley Dene property last year, to draft 28 and 291 b lambs in late October or early November. Easing Pressure This will immediately ease the feed supply position because the ewes from which the lambs aie drafted can very soon be sold as fats or put on to very bare pasture. If it continues dry there will be no alternative but to also graze the lucerne paddocks it had been hoped to save for hay to replenish depleted supplies of supplementary feed, but it is absolutely vital to get the maximum number of lambs away at the earliest moment. Where ground is being cultivated it is necessary to ensure that all moisture is conserved-to ensure successful strikes of rape, turnips, etc., for lamb fattening and where sowing of lucerne is contemplated it can be proceeded with provided moisture, by virtue of cultivation, has been brought right up to the surface.