WOOLSHED DANGERS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7914, 25 September 1911, Page 2

WOOLSHED DANGERS

A correspondent -writing in the "Pastoralists' Review” on the necessity for thoroughly disinfecting a woolshed before shearing relates his experience as follows: — . Some years ago a friend of mine sheared his stud sheep as first of the flock, and to his dismay found them dying wholesale after. The SOfl-guinca ram he had recently bought in Sydney and half his best sheep went under. Every effort was made to discover the cause, and all sorts of theories advanced, but to no effect. -Some years after I bad all dead wool collected on the run, and it went ‘"pro hem.” into tho woolshed. The same result attended the shearing of the first, of the sheep, hundreds died after shearing from blood poisoning. It was my first experience of such a thing in my lifetime. , . , I mentioned the subject to my mend quoted above. "Did you have any dead wool stored in the shed before shearing?” said he. "That is just what 1 did have,” said I, "Then that .is the reason of both your loss and mine, he said. ’ , After everyone had failed to find out the cause of his sheep dying, an old squatter asked him this question aa to dead wool iu tho shed, and on his answering that he had had it placed there some time before shearing, was told that it was, without doubt, the cause of the deaths. . , . , Since then I have inquired into the matter, and found that in many carefully managed sheds in Tasmania they are always sprayed with a disinfectant before shearing, and that this was a sure preventive of any such leas. In parts of Tasmania, too, owing to the cold in the winter, the ewes are lambed through sheds, and even there it was found that ewes died from blood poisoning. after lambing. If the sheds were sprayed with a solution of carbolic the losses are at once stopped. Tn wOolsheds it is usually the first sheep shorn that suffer. The microbes from tho dead wool descend with the dust and poison the cuts. Later on the vibration and working of the shed has dislodged all poisonous dust, and no further loss occurs.