OTAGO LAMBS

Evening Star, Issue 19617, 25 July 1927, Page 1

OTAGO LAMBS

CAUSES OF MORTALITY

INVESTIGATIONS PROCEEDING Last week the Minister of Agriculture made a statement in Parliament us lb what his department is doing in regard to th© causes of the serious mortality amongst young lambs that has been reported from several districts, especially Otago, during the past four or five years The matter is one of first importance, deserving further mention. Tho latest results as to investigation by _our scientists are embodied in an article by Mr A. Gill, of the Wallaceville laboratory, and published in the ‘ Journal of Agriculture.’ A few extracts are here submitted. Mr Gilruth first investigated this disease, renal congestion, and concluded that the trouble was of dietetic origin, Tho views he formulated twenty ago are held to-day—namely, that the condition is the. result of the lambs being “done ” too well, and that losses may be checked by such means as exercise, reduced diet, and bloodletting Mauiototo and Palmerston are places where the trouble is or has been at its w’orst, and Oamaru has suffered badly. The deaths are mostly of lambs from two aud a-ha!f to four weeks old—> milk-fed lambs, indicating that tho disease comes from the ewes. The lambs that die of this, kidney complaint are invariably in forward condition. The pastures they have been on are rich—made rich by the exclusion of the rabbits. Thus it comes about that a quicklydeveloping type of lamb is supplied with abundance of milk from birtn; it reaches in an over-fat condition tho age when grazing commences; it is plethoric and lazy, and its digestive organs become sluggish in action. When the lamb starts picking for itself it ingests not only a large quantity of milk, but probably highlv-nutritious herbage that it cannot digest, and poisonous products form in the body. These are the theories that call for the farther investigations now proceeding. Mr Gill suggests, amongst other measures, daily exercises, docking and yarding, the using of lush pastures, and feeding ewes during pregnancy with tho object of leering -the milk yield. From other sources, not from Mr Gill, it is learned that merinos do not take the pulpy kidney trouble. It is most common with lambs that fatten quickly for freezing. No further results of investigations can be looked .for until tho general lambing in October.