CHANGE ADVOCATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27112, 21 June 1949, Page 6

CHANGE ADVOCATED

BREEDS AND GRADING AIM OF GREATER MUTTON PRODUCTION PA GISBORNE, June 20. A change in breed sires and the scrapping of the present system of grading built up on structure and consumer preference as temporary measures would do much to build up the Dominion’s output of mutton and contribute largely to the 50,000-ton increase in meat promised by New Zealand to the United Kingdom, according to Dr C. P. McMeekan, director of the Ruakura Animal Research Station. Dr McMeekan told the Gisborne Veterinary Club’s Farm School of experiments at Ruakura with 500 ewes for three successive seasons. They had put eight different breeds ovbr Romney ewes, contrasting the progeny as fat lambs on the hooks. The breeds used were Southdown, Ryland, Dorset, Suffolk, Border Leicester, English Leicester, Cheviot and straight Romney, The Suffolk, Dorset and Border Leicester produced more total meat and more money value per lamb than the Down-Suffolk cross, averaging about 41b heavier on the hooks than the Down. A considerable increase in tonnage would be obtained by the simple experiment of a change in rams. “ That situation is a fact,” declared Dr McMeekan.

“In view of the fact that the producers of the Dominion have undertaken to increase the output of meat by 50,000 tons—and there seems little prospect of their doing so by normal means—this method is worth considering,” he said. In terms of the existing ideas of fat lamb quality and grading standard, lambs produced by this breed would grade out less efficiently than Down-cross. They were bigger, leggier and leaner lambs. “The grading standards adopted in this Dominion are relatively artificial,” Dr McMeekan continued. “They have definitely been so for 10 years, through grading meat for quality based on a consumer preference basis where first grade is considered better than second grade. For 10 years in Britain there has been no consumer preference because of the rationing of meat, and I believe there is very little chance of there being any consumer preference in Britain for another 10 years at least. For 10 years there has been no quality differential possible and there is no sign of a change of conditions to those ruling before the war/’ he continued. i “Insofar as the English (housewife has to be content with a ration of lOd worth of meat a week the amount is of much more interest than the quality. /The present Down cross grade is a lousy grade. Over 10 per cent, of the meat she buys is fat. which she does not want,” Dr McMeekan said. It would be a relatively easy change to make, and producers could just as easily revert back to the use of the Down when the quality of the carcass again became paramount.