MEDICINAL SHEEP LICKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20263, 24 May 1929, Page 18

MEDICINAL SHEEP LICKS.

WIDER USAGE LIKELY.

KEEPING ANIMALS HEALTHY. Twenty years or so ago the provision of salt licks for sheep 011 even the very large stations of New Zealand was far more common than it is to-day, but current investigation the world over of problems of animal nutrition is directing fresh attention to the value of salt and other licks for sheep. A writer in an Australian journal, after mentioning somo aspects of modern research into animal malnutrition, says: —"Feed your soil with the necessary elements for plant life and animal health, then wealth will pile up in more and better grasses, grain, wool, butter, fruit, beef and mutton. "Up to the present the man on the land has not learnt the value of the mineral contents of feedstuffs or realised that various grasses and grain feeds may not have enough balanced mineral compounds in their composition to supply the animals with adequate nutriment to carry 011. Owners of sheep and dairy herds who want more wool and more milk, etc., by insufficient feeding, place a big drain on the reserve forces of their animals, so that malnutrition, disease and sterility ultimately attack the stock." Ho remarks that in somo continuously and closely-cropped areas there is bound to result a serious deficiency of some important elements unless thero is given back to the soil what is taken out of it and thero is inaugurated a system of supplying directly, to the animal a mineral ration in the shapo of a lick which will givo it health and power to resist disease. Dealing with the composition of licks, apart from their salt content, he emphasises the necessity of lime and phosphorous and iodine in the form of iodide of potash as a preventive of goitre of thick neck in young animals. (< "0"o thing certain," says this writer, "is that the internal administration of certain compound elements is going a long way to settle the question of internal and external parasites and predacious micro-organisms, bacteria, etc. "An unhealthy animal gives off body odors, which attract the blowfly and other pests. The properly-balanced ration may go a long way to settle this very great trouble. In Australia the prospect of a sarie administration of animal licks should result in increased health and wealth to the Commonwealth."