BREEDING OF LAMBS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4397, 25 May 1933, Page 8

BREEDING OF LAMBS

PRIZE-WINNER TELLS HOW. At Saturday morning's meeting •of the Wairarapa A. and P. Society, at Carterton, Mr. P. R. Welch, of Masterton, who won the first prize in the North Island fat lamb competition, in response to an invitation from the Meat Board regarding the breeding, feeding, etc., of the animals, wrote that the three lambs in question were three-quarter-bred Downs, bred from ordinary Southdown-Romney cross ewes.

! He had, among other sheep, about twenty such half-bred Down ewes. All their lambs were good, but unfortunately the greater part of such ewes had twin lambs, consequently their lambs were a little later than the singles in arriving at maturity. The sheep did exceedingly well during the year, fed on chou-mollier during mating season, then on turnips and swedes, with a daily run off on to grass during winter, and well into lambing, and finally grazed on topdressed pasture. Mr. Welch attributed his success last year to: (1) Selecting of good blockey rams and ewes. (2) Good feeding from mating time onward. (3) Constant pers'onal supervision and attention. Although the crossbred Down-Romney ewes, together with purebred Romney ewes, were all mated with the same rams and received similar treatment during the year, without question the three-quarter-bred Down lambs were superior for shape, quality and weight. The secretary mentioned that the lambs returned 19s. 3d. to the producers.