Office to Farm

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26290, 23 October 1946, Page 2

Office to Farm

An Ex-soldier’s Narrative For the Daily Times, by N. R. H. XXII “All they need is a board and a set of wheels under them,” remarked H. F. as he put a distinguishing mark on yet another pair of twins. This particular pair really required no such mark, because they were so typical of the nock, They resembled perfectly the woolly toys which very yoting people pull along by a string, and their long, curly, wool was of a bleached whiteness. Neighbouring ewes edged their lambs away from this pair, and I heard one of them remark, as she moved off, “ I thought my lamb was white until I saw it beside your washing powder ones.” The weather has been reasonably kind for the first stage of the lambing, although we could have wished for less of the cold wind. As early as possible in the mornings we make a tour of the paddocks in which sheep have been left. Hardly a sheep fails to come under scrutiny, and this is no mean feat considering the size of the paddocks and the nature of the country. But H. F. knows every hole and ledge where sheep are likely to be and the direction in which they will wander when approachd from any angle. Any ewes which may be in need of help are speedily attended to, and all twin lambs given identical marks so that they may be returned to mother when they are found straying. Identification Parade Some lambs appear to be born a glistening white, others are greyish, except for white gaiters, and the majority are of varying shades of yellow. This colour soon goes and, in a day or so, the lambs are either greyishwhite or white. Twins are the blessing and the bane of the sheepfarmer. The blessing part is obvious, but one must meet a few sets of twins to judge of the bane. They are apt to do so many silly things and sometimes their mothers show just as little sense. One twin may take the whole milk supply, leaving the other to starve unless attended to, or one may be of the wandering type, and so lose his mother and thus come to starvation unless found and returned. Sometimes the mother takes a fancy to one twin and neglects or repels the other. She may wander off and leave the weaker or the more sleepy one of her two, and then, despite great distress and much bleating, be unable to find it.

Ewes seem to use hearing and sense of smell in detecting their own lambs. They seem to be able to recognise the bleat of their progeny, although this is only an indication to them, and the fore and aft sniff gives confirmation. If a lamb has fed and is not worried about his wandering mother, he may keep silent and the ewe will make a quick tour of all the lambs in sight and recognise her own by sense of smell.

Every now and then a stray lamb will attach itself to a ewe and lamb and try to steal a quick lunch. The ewe sniffs and then lowers her head and knocks him over. If he is persistent, or just silly, he will come back and receive a more severe rebuff. But woe betide him if that is not enough. Ewes become positively savage and endeavour to kill trespassing lambs although their anxiety for their own bairn always'causes them to rush back to it before they do much harm. Hang-dogs

I have proved many times that the dog is the sheep’s natural enemy, whereas sheep regard man as a mere gate-opener. It is almost impossible to work sheep in any way without the backing of a dog, even though the dog may remain at heel and never give tongue. One wanders quietly behind a mob of ewes which are about to lamb and they obediently trot along, so long as the dog is in the vicinity. It may be later in the same day, after a fe.w of the sheep have produced lambs, that one is among them with the same dog. The whole position is reversed. Their fear of the dog is gone and they will stand over their lamb stamping their feet and glaring. If the dog unwisely ventures too close many ewes will turn and chase him until he has run to safety. Some ewes will stop as soon as the dog turns tail, and run back to baby, but others will pursue him until he jumps a fence. It is really ludicrous to see the dog, which has treated sheep with easy., contempt for so long, suddenly assume a look of bewilderment, followed by alarm, as a ewe turns on him, and then to observe his shamefaced return to duty by some other route. Plunket Practice There are always a few stillborn lambs and a few whose mothers will have none of them. Those whose lambs are dead must be introduced to the motherless lambs, and a certain amount of guile is necessary to effect the change over. The dead lamb, which has been sniffed by its mother, is skinned and the jacket is fitted over the motherless one. Usually she will be satisfied, even though she may have witnessed the whole performance (I did consider this a bit harrowing for her, at first), and will accept the lamb in lamb’s clothing as her own. In order to ensure that the deception has worked, we bring the pair home and tie. up the mother for a while. When she indicates that all is well and the lamb is feeding satisfactorily. she is released and allowed to join the mothers’ guild in a special paddock. It is astonishing how unlike lambs are, and how one gets to know the temperament of each one that is handled. When the number of lambs to be mothered exceeds the number of lambless mothers available, one must resort to the feeding bottle. As mothers increase, the bottle is discontinued, but my efforts with these ones have met with limited success. To return to ewe milk after living for a day or two on cow milk seems to cause tummy-ache and general lassitude. So far we have kept a fairly even balance between mothers and lambs, but a neighbour told me the other day that he had used up all his mothers and all the space available in his home for bottlefed babies, and, if any more' came along, he would have to resort to executing them. This seems a great pity, and no one would regrei it more than the farmer concerned, but there must be a limit and bottle-feeding takes a great deal of time. Foster Children The mothering of foster children takes time, too, as the youngsters often have to be caught and held while an unwilling mother is turned over and forced to deliver the goods. Loris tried this little game and found that she did quite well so long as the ewe would stand still, but the process of upending and holding big sheep while stooping over to hold the lamb gave her a day in bed with a strained back I begin to suspect that she no longer has that charming feeling of delight in a spring lamb which once she possessed. She is quite decided, too, that Christmas dinner will be turkey. On the whole, lambing is fascinating, and very tiring. One covers a very considerable distance in the course of a day. and the going is not all flat. The art of elementary obstetrics is part of the day’s work, and. although H. F. has attended to all “ cases ” to date. I should be quite prepared to tackle one if an emergency arose. I do not think that anyone should consider sheep farming unless they are really interested in sheep but to the man who is keen there'is no part of the work without interest.