THE FAT LAMB QUESTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14976, 23 April 1909, Page 11

THE FAT LAMB QUESTION.

Professor Lowrie, Director of Agriculture of Western Australia, recently delivered an interesting address atHortham, Western Australia, and referring to the fat lamb question said:—“l weut to New Zealand with a keen desire to learn just wliat the Canterbury lamb was that always brought a penny or three-farthings per pound more on the London market than Australian lamb, and to find out bow it was nroduced. You may question my judgment on the matter, but I will say that in South Australia I was able to produce fat lambs as good as—indeed, better than—l did in the seven years I was working in New Zealand in one of the most favoured districts in that dominion. If they were not better they were certainly earlier. In four and a half months I could make a lamb in South Australia of a certain weight and quality that I could not make in New Zealand in the same period with rape arid vetches and the best, of fodder. The weather in Australia is wanner and drier. In Now Zealand the lambs havo their bellies and fleeces constantly wet, and do not grow so rapidly. When 1 argued with my New Zealand friends on this matter, and told them they could not beat the Australians if tlio Australians were us careful over their sheep, I instanced to them that I had had fat lambs at the Adelaide Show lambed at the beginning of May and killed on September 12, that dressed G4flb butcher’s weight, or equal to about 611 b freezing weight. A lamb of that ago and weight 1 could not reach all the years that I was in New Zealand. The South Australian lambs of which I speak were produced on stubble and fallow worked on the system of taking a crop once iu tkreo years, their feed being dandelion, wild oats in more than abundance, trefoil, etc. They were out of half-bred ewes by Dorset Horn rams. If I were on Roseworthy again, with, its sevnt-een

inch rainfall, f ouuld go one better than I r <iJ then, consequent on what I learned irom those Keen sheep graziers of New Zealand. “To keep the industry as satisfactory as it should be the one fact that ovorv farmer should keep before his mind’s eye is, ’ Beware of overstocking.’ That, of course, is an everyday platitude; but. although the dangers of and the troubles from it are very well understood, there are many that do not act accordingly. I think every farmer should have it pasted up in red inkover his dressing-table, so that he. could see it every morning. ‘ Beware of overstocking.’ its evils come out in so many ways. Your ewes suffer, your wool is split, your percentage of lambs is smaller, and your lambs are never of good quality. Rather see some of vour feed going to waste than run the risk of seeing your sheep scraping the surface for something to eat. Even to tho very wisest and most cautious tlieie comes a time when things gang agley. When that time comes I would urge that if there if, a. stack of hay on the farm, that stack shall ho reduced before the ewes are allowed to suffer. Rather than pinch bis flock when they are' about to drop their lambs, it will pay a man to chaff his hay and feed it to them, even when hay is athigh a price as you are fortunate enough to receive for it here. One pound of chaff per day will keep them in fair condition, and two pounds per day will be full going for them. You will not have to do it very long, and then only m exceptional seasons, when heavy summer rains com© and the dry feed gets trampled down and blown away. It you have no facilities to chaff, feed the hay long. It will be more wasteful than chaffing, but better than letting the flocks starve and have a break in the wool. , . . “You may ask what breeds of sheep are best adapted for this purpose. Of course, in Australia the merino must alwavs be the basis of the wealth, we get from the sheep. At. the same time, I think the farmers working under conditions such as I have been talking of will do better with half-bred or three-part bred ewes than rnorinoes. In that respect you aro in a more difficult position than the farmer ill New Zealand. There they can buy in the market two-tooth half-bred ewes all ready to put on the land. They can buy those ewes in lots of 200 to /00, according to their requirements, and after keeping them for three lots of lambs sell them again. These conditions, I believe, do not exist here, although if the demand were here probably it would be met by the pastoralists. Failing that, my idea would be to get hold of a line of the biggestframed and best merino ewes, such as those from Bungaree, Booborowies or Canowie, and with these use a long-wool ram—Lincoln, English Leicester, or even Border Leicester—but always and every time u long-wool ram. I have gone through tho other stage, using a short-wool ram : hut it was want of experience that made me do it. Ihe English Leicesters and the Border Leicesters are not plentiful, but they can be obtained almost as easily as the Lincolns. From experience I lean more to the English Leicester than to the Lincoln. The Lincolns may give you a greater weight in your lambs, but you will have a heavier loss of lambs, and by that means you may lose more than you gain. The pure-bred Linooln is most delicate as a hogget, and the Lincoln cross-bred as a hogget is not so hardy as the English Leicester. If you aro going to sell all your lambs and simply buy ewes off the shears aud run a sort of lambing-down trade, the Shropshire or Dorset Horn ram may suit you bettor, but you aro likely to get a nondescript wool not profitable to the farmer. AVorking on the linee I suggest, always keep back your best ewe lambs. Do not do as many farmers in New Zealand do, sell all the first draft, ewes and wethers alike. The best ewe lambs are tho ones that fatten first, and it is the ewes, from tho first draft that should bo kept to work in for the breeding flock. The finest sheep I have ever bred were from half-bred ewes—ewes by English Leicester rams out of merino ewes—by Border Leicester rams. There I got a three-part sheep with a beautiful big frame. The percentage of lambs in one field by Southdown rams from these sheep was 162. When you get to that three-quar-ter stage you want the Shropshire or tho Southdown ram, because you have built up the frame to give you tho right sort of lamb for freezing—from 321 b to 361 b. Ultimately, I believe the heavier lambs will pay "better. It ig most important if tho lamb trade is to be developed that we should get away somewhat from the merino. The merino are just as sweet, but they are a different colour, and do not sell so well. Wo m ,jst get the half to three-quarter-bred, so that when the lambs go Home thev will compare witli the lambs bred in the Old Country or the lambs shipped from New Zealand or the Argentine.” __