HEALTHY STOCK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 64, 13 February 1936, Page 5

HEALTHY STOCK

EXPERIMENTS IN SOUTH. VALUABLE RESULTS. Per Pro's Association. WELLINGTON, Feb. 12. “Outstanding results in the improvement of stock health are being obtained in the co-operative 'investigations of the Department oFScientific and Industrial Research and the Cawthron Institute at Glenhope (Nelson) and Morton Mains (Southland) as the result of supplementing the natural _ pasturage of sheep with .minute quantities of cohalt chloride.” stated the Minister of Scientific and Industrial Research today. “At Glenhope sheep affected with an ailment which shows typical symptoms of bush sickness have made a marked recovery as the result of administering twice weekly a small amount of cobalt salt, the dosage being approximately l-30.0000z. At Morton Mains similar treatment of lambs on grazing pastures associated with what is known locally as Morton Mains ailment has resulted in a surprising increase in the weight and improvement in stock health. In the Southland experiments the lambs receiving cobalt salt have gained during a period of less than two months an average of 101 b per head more than the corresponding lambs not receiving the cohalt supplement, but otherwise on exactly the same pasturage. While it is yet too early to state that cobalt deficiency is the sole cause of the Nelson and Southland stock ailments, the evidence so far available points strongly in that direction, as in addition to the results of feeding small quantities of cobalt it has been shown by micro-analysis that cobalt is markedly deficient in these, soils compared with the same soils in a healthy country. The same deficiency is shown in certain typical bush-sick soils in the North Island.”