Agricultural and Pastoral

Otago Witness, Issue 1005, 4 March 1871, Page 10

Agricultural and Pastoral

SHEEP BREEDING.

The description of sheep in the greatest demand by arable farmers are early 9nd quick feeders'. The breeder of sheep requires to adapt his flock to the character of his breeding ground, and the facilities itjafforda for shelter. It should always be within his power to select those animals for breeding which are the most perfect in form, and being the most symmetrical, are, as a consequence, more easily fattened than coaTse animals. As profit is what every farmer has in view, whether he is a breeder or feeder of stock, it should be remembered that it costs no more for food and attendance to raise and fatten a superior sheep than an inferior one. The point to be aimed at by the breeder is therefore to breed only from the best, and for the feeder to purchase only the best for feeding. Too much care cannot be exercised in the selection of both sire and dam, No ram should be used without being first examined ; this examination may be undertaken at the time the animals are separated from their dams, and afterwards before they are used for breeding purposes. It does not by any means follow because the ram and ewe are superior in form, that their progeny will closely resemble them in this respect, but the probabilities are in favour of a close resemblance. At all events the symmetry of form will re- appear in their progeny, and with care in selecting the best, the symmetry of form will become hereditary. Size and substance are important, but are less so than symmetry. A string back and loins, with long and level quarters and muscular thighs, with the legs well placed under the sheep, the barrel round, and the ribs well sprung from the spine with a muscular neck, and finely formed head — these are most essential points. The size and position of the eyes usually indicates the care which has been bestowed in the breeding of animals. The description of stock which usually pays the feeder best for the food eaten are cross-bred sheep — that is, sheep the produce of a pure bred ram of a highly improved breed, and a pure- bred or cross ewe of a different breed. In selecting rams for the purpose of obtaining half-bred lambs, it is not unimportant to bestow considerable attention to symmetry, although form and general character are not ao important as purity, of descent. There are farmers ■who use half-bred rams having the character of a pure breed to serve eweß intended to produce half-bred lambs, but the produce is generally unequal in siz9 and in character, while the evident absence of uniformity operates against their selling price in a market. The purchaser who undertakes to fatten them usually finds that they are large consumers, while the absence of uniformity tends to reduce their selling value when fat. It is true economy, therefore, in selecting rams for the purpose of breeding half-bred lambs —whether these are to be sold fat when auckiag, or are to be sold as fat hoggets— to choose those rams which are pure as to breed, and have the distinguishing points of the breed well-developed. — "Victorian paper.