AN INTERNATIONAL SHEEP JUDGE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31835, 13 November 1968, Page 27

AN INTERNATIONAL SHEEP JUDGE

The Australian visitor, Mr C. Bowhay. who will judge the Merinos at this year’s Christchurch Show, could fairly claim to be an international judge.

Mr Bowbay's visit to New Zealand is his second outside Australia this year to judge Merinos. He judged Merinos at Buenos Aires in July, and as he remarked at the Marlborough Show last week, it was pretty unusual for a judge to get two overseas trips in a year. Asked how the South American Merinos compared with the Australian sheep. Mr Bowhay said: “I could still pick the Australian families. They are so much like the Australian Merino in appearance, and they are a lovely woolled sheep. “They might not be as big as our sheep, but most of them are confined to one corner of South America, Patagonia, and that is as harsh and tough a place that you could find'to run sheep.” . Mr ; Bow hay said he thought that South America

was running short of top sheep. He formed this view after the champion ram at Buenos Aires fetched 2,300,000 pesos, or about $5600, while a ewe realised 500,000 pesos. Mr Bowhay is the owner of Buckinbah, a 40,000-acre property at St George, in Queensland. It was beautiful sheep country when it received an average rainfall, he said. But it got occasional droughts. “It grows lovely Merino wool and big sheep. We sell about 2000 rams a year, so we are in a fair way of business." Mr Bowhay runs the place with one son. Mr Bowhay is one of the leading Merino judges in Australia. He has judged 18 times at Sydney—the premier Merino show in the world—six times at Adeladie, and also at Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.