Plea For Constitution In Stock Breeding

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29222, 4 June 1960, Page 8

Plea For Constitution In Stock Breeding

“QF all the characteristics of our domestic animals by far the most important one in the next few years is going to be the completely neglected one of constitution,” the well-known North Canterbury stud Corriedale breeder. Mr J. R. Little, of Hui Hui, Hawarden told the farmers’ conference at Lincoln. “The essential thing is not going to be the improvement of our animals’ production—it is going to be to keep them alive at the production plane we expect and under the conditions that we are providing .for them.”

Definition Mr Little defined constitution as the animal’s ability to live in health and produce the maximum possible of the commodities, for which it is kept, under the conditions in which it is maintained. “In a sort of mad gallop into the wild blue yonder, stock farming practice is being dragged on by an exuberantly assured science in front and spurred on by political and economic expediency from behind,” he said. “We are encouraged to throw away the concept of basic constitution altogether and replace it with veterinary science, ever to increase the production of the animal irrespective of its ability to produce or sustain that increase, and to force the animal to do this under conditions of which ‘more’ is the only criterion and ‘suitability’ never considered. . . .

“I am quite certain that the alarming and ever increasing illhealth and mortality in the livestock of this country is. in virtually all cases, brought about by the disregard of this essential balance. . . . And I am equally certain that in direct ratio to the extent and rapidity with which we continue to develop this situation, so will a decreasing number of individuals be found among our live-

stock capable of coping with it.

.“I suggest that the recent great advances made in livestock farming by the combined efforts of research workers and livestock farmers, including the stud breeder, represent such great steps forward that we have reached a stage where some thought to the matter of consolidation has become essential. The next decade, particularly in oar livestock farming, must be devoted more to confirming and consolidating the very great advances made than to blindly continue to move on from an already precarious position to a possibly even more precarious one.” Fallacy Mr Little regretted the point of view that regarded constitution as unimportant or replaceable by veterinary science and animal nutrition. This might be, to some degree, true ‘in the case of stall-fed stock but in the case of animals maintained on pastures of varying , degrees of suitability this idea became not only an economic impossibility but a highly dangerous fallacy, he continued.

While admitting the great debt that farmers owed to veterinary science Mr Little, however, warned that there was a great danger for the future constitutional vigour of livestock if stud men placed excessive reliance on preventive and curative veterinary practice. “To . rely completely on veterinary science to answer problems among our stud animals can only prevent any evolutionary process taking place at all, because those bloodlines more constitutionally-suited to the new conditions remain hidden among the mass of

animals surviving only by reason of increasing veterinary attention.”

Mr- Little said that the consideration of an animal as being merely a production unit was necessary for research work, but the growing acceptance of this dreadful cult in farming practice, with its attendant deterioration in the management, feeding and handling of livestock was deplorable. In this he said there was the development of pastures with efficiency of production of bulk and not of animal fodder at all: the entire elimination of any possibility of animal selection of grazing caused by the development of the dual-species pasture without much, if any, investigation into the value of selective grazing; and the conception of palatability as being something the animal likes rather than whether it may indicate something the animal needs. “Wrong” “The use of livestock in mixed farming primarily to condition pastures or prepare for small seed harvests, and only as a very secondary consideration to satisfy their requirements is wrong,” said Mr Little. “For small seeds it may be necessary! to some degree, but to put con-! sideration of pasture before con-' sideration of stock, borders on, the ridiculous.”

Mr Little concluded with the suggestion that in'future research relating to agriculture, which included livestock, there should be greater co-ordination between experts, including the experts in livestock such as the breeders. Thus he saw the need for some overall co-ordinating body integrating all research.