Advice For Islands’ Farmers

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 8

Advice For Islands’ Farmers

The visit last month to the Chatham Islands of Mr G. Bowen, field director of the Wool Board, Mr C. Waite, chief shearing instructor to the board, and Mr L. Galloway, a sheep and wool instructor of the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, came at a most opportune time for island farmers who were busy shearing their sheep before they were sent to the new abattoir and meat export packing house on the island for slaughter.

Mr Galloway said this week he had been able to advise on the sorting and classing of second-shear wools and also to teach farmers and their helpers how to keep fine and strong wools separate. Subsequently he had been able to visit the various sheds to check on the work being done as shearing progressed. Wool handling instruction, demonstrations and competitions were held on four days of the visit and Mr Galloway said he had found the standard of wool handling remarkably high. Eight teams of two had taken pert in the competitions, which were won by J. Tuanui and Ada Hough, and he could say that there were no serious faults in the work of any of the competitors. Before he left he found that these people had well and truly mastered the sweeping of the crutch, belly fribbing and sorting of oddments. He said they approached this work with enthusiasm and had seemed keen to learn. He had noticed that farmers were anxious to stay on the table themselves and make a good job of their wool. In conjunction with Mr A. Watson, farm advisory officer of the department on the Chathams, Mr Galloway said, he had taken part in a field day on Mr P. Smith's property when considerable attention had been given to flock improvement and sheep breeding. During the last week he had been on the island he had had many inquiries from farmers to look at their flocks and he regarded this opportunity to go on to blocks and see the sheep in the yards as one of the features of his visit. Farmers, he said, had welcomed the advice and taken it in very good part He had also had many requests to select rams for flocks and it had been a great advantage to be able to see the sheep and the country. Mr Galloway said that future well-being of farming on the islands would clearly be associated with the new abattoir and packing house, which to his mind looked to be a really top line miniature freezing works, but he said he did not think the Islands would go ahead from a sheep point of view until lambs could be slaughtered there —the first objective is to deal with the older sheep. The islands had a very great potential for lamb production but because there had so far been, no outlet for them farmers were not much concerned about lambing percentages and some farmers ran their older ewes dry and bred from everything else. In practice little culling was done and in the smaller flocks, particularly, a serious situation had developed with hairy britch and plainness so that up. to 75 per cent of twotooths in some flocks had wool faults.

eluded two big pens at the back leading into a square forcing pen and then into a drafting race. Mr Galloway said he was impressed with the cleanliness of the woolsheds he saw, as well as the keenness of farmers to handle their wool correctly. While there he had been able to give plans to two farmers—one of whom wished to renovate an existing shed and one who wished to build a new shed. One would be a return race sbed and the new shed would have a raised board and chute. He had also supplied plans

A major factor in this had been the cost of getting rams from New Zealand and with the decline in wool prices many of the smaller farmers had been forced to use cast off rams either sold or given away by the larger properties or cull rams from properties where they were breeding their own rams. Most of the rams sent from New Zealand had been of a reasonable standard but some had fallen short

In this context Mr Galloway also regarded as one of the highlights of bis visit his being able to select some fine mixed age ewes at Wharekauri, which is managed by Mr M. McHardy, for mating with a stud ram with a view to breeding rams for the station. To keep standards high it was intended to cull rigidly and wool weights and weaning weights would be recorded.

Very little injection of lambs or ewes was done, he said, and quite a lot of lambs died within three days of birth or when they got bigger. Facilities for drenching and examining sheep were generally not satisfactory, as in the main sheep yards, did not have narrow crush pens. The general run of yards on the islands in-

for two new sets of sheepyards and had circulated plans for a pipe fadge holder and had been most gratified to see that some farmers had made these and had them in use before he had left the islands.

While they had been on the islands, Mr Galloway said, Mr Bob Tuanui, the Chathams shearing champion, had been appointed official shearing instructor for the Wool Board, so that for the first time there would be a part-time shearing instructor on the islands.

Mr Galloway said that they had received most outstanding hospitality during theii visit and at all times had been accompanied by Mr J. Tuanui, the president of the islands branch of Federated Farmers. It was felt .that one of the reasons for the success of their visit was that advice about wool handling and such techniques as sheep selection and culling could lead to gains without any cost to the farmer. This was at a time when island farmers were in a pretty difficult position financially, with high expenses and low wool prices, and in fact quite a few were engaged in crayfishing and were making more money out of fishing than farming. But they were basically farmers and what they earned would find its way back into farming. Mr Galloway said that the island farmers had invited him to return to the islands in February to help in the culling of flocks before the next mating. Mr Galloway thinks that the islanders could benefit also from the location of a small wool store on the islands where wool could be classed and double dumped and then exported directly overseas or sent to New Zealand. At least there would be some freight savings, he said.