FAT LAMB INDUSTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22243, 18 October 1935, Page 17

FAT LAMB INDUSTRY

NEW ZEALAND'S SUCCESS

MAINTENANCE OF QUALITY

THE CROSSBRED CARCASE

BT H.B.T,

The New Zealand' sheep farmer has every reason to congratulate himself on the success he has attained in building up the reputation of his lamb on the English market. At the same time, this success in producing the class of meat popular with the Homo consumer has been largely a matter of fortunate chance. We have reached a state of heavy lamb production at a moment when the vagaries of the consumer demand a combination of small joint and young juicy, tender meat. If we wish to maintain our supremacy as producers of the finest quality fat lamb, it would be advisable for us to make a close study of the business of breeding, as distinct from fattening, for there is little doubt that our competitors in Argentina, Australia, and Africa, are awake to the possibilty of earning big profits in this business, and will spare no pains to turn out as good, or even a better article, than we do at the moment. If we look back over the fat lamb export business we will see that the early reputation of the Dominion for "quality" fat lambs was budt and has been maintained by the English Leicester-Merino cross, which was for many years favoured in Canterbury and the north of the South Island. Light-Boned Progenitors

That this cross should have proved to be the success it undoubtedly is as a well-shaped early-maturing lamb is surprising in some respects, for the Merino is neither an early-maturing sheep, nor has it a well-shaped mutton carcase. The English Leicester, however, a very prepotent breed, has both earlymaturing qualities and an excellent carcase, and while tho Merino was responsible for the fine texture and flavour of the flesh of the half-bred, as well as largely influencing its size of frame and fineness of bone, the English Leicester gave it the compact meat frame and early maturity. One feature common to both these breeds of sheep, and which, though too often overlooked in breeding for fat lambs, is of tho utmost importance, is that both are "light-bone" breeds. , Actually, it has been proved time and time "again that mating the Merino ram with the English Leicester ewe produced a better-shaped lamb than the reverse mating, but with a preponderance of Merino flocks in tho South Island it was natural that most of the breeding ot the famous "Canterbury" lamb was English Leicester ram on Merino ewe. Various crosses of Leicester and other big-framed rams on Merino ewes were tried in the south, but every one that the writer has heard of was a failure in so far as producing early fat lambs or shapely carcases was concerned.

Reasons for Failure in the first place, a big-boned breed is never early maturing, and in the second, a cress in which the male is of a bigger bre«d than the female seldom produees shapely form in the offspring. Smallness of bono is of the utmost importance in stock which is bred primarily to mature and fatten at an early age. The reason for this is that the bone or skeleton of a growing animal makes tho first and heaviest drain on all nourishment. The animal with small frame and light bone, satisfies this demand earliest and thereafter lays ots meat and surplus fat rapidly. With the bigger-boned, largerframed species, the demand of the skeleton is extended over a longer period and the feed which we hope will be converted to condition, is used to continue growth of frame and correspondingly heavy bone. In the light of this knowledge it is not difficult to see why the l<eicesterMenno cross of Canterbury, both smallboned sheep, produced early-maturing lambs while in the North Island, with the Romney-Lincoln cross growers were troubled with the fact that their lambs would insist on growing instead of fattening. It was not until they introduced the Southdown ram—a small-boned, compact sheep, with fine-textured flesh, and crossed him with the bigboned, Romney-Lincoln ewe that they had success in producing early and shapely fat lambs.

Ideal Fat Lamb Grosses A still better cross would be Southdown ram on English Leicester or English Leicester-cross ewes. Here there would be small bone, early maturity and excellent form of carcase on both sides, while the ewes would be of a slightiy bigger breed than the ram—a most desirable feature. This, however, would entail a loss of weight in woo! in our ewe flocks, and would therefore not appeal to the average sheep farmer to whom the wool clip is an important item. Nevertheless the time is coming when specialists in fat lamb production will employ some sucH cross exclusively. Another cross which would be productive of early lambs with excellentlyshaped carcases, and in which the weight of wool in the ewe flock would not suffer to any appreciable extent, would be Ryeland-Romney first cross ewes put to a Southdown ram. Tho Ryeland, having a small-boned compact and meaty carcase, carrying a fairly weighty fleeco of valuable wool, would mate well with the bigger-framed Romney and transfer many of its valuable qualities to the progeny. The ewes of this first cross would be valuable flock sheep, and crossed again with the Southdown would produce fat lambs as nearly ideal as could be imagined.

It will pay tho farmer who is going in largely for fat lamb production to study carefully the relation and size and bone to early maturity, and buy ewes and rams with these qualities.