HOW TO CLASS SHEEP.

Otago Witness, Volume 17, Issue 1020, 17 June 1871, Page 4

HOW TO CLASS SHEEP.

To class sheep properly requires an amount of skill which nothing but extended practical experience can confer. There are many defects in sheep, both of carcase and wool, which cannot be clearly defined to the apprehension of the wholly inexperienced person, by any description in writing. If the sheep-owner has not the opportunity of getting his sheep classed by an expert, he may, by observing these instructions, be enabled to detect and throw out of his flocks such sheep as are palpably bad. ISheep of the following description may safely Le rejected :—: — 1. A very short-stapled hard-wooled sheep. 2. Sheep that strip at the points, and lose the belly wool, having a clean head without top-knot. 3. Any that have black or yellow spots on legs or face. 4, Unusually small sheep. 5. Any that appear thin and constitutionally feeble. 6. Sheep whoße wool is thin and light. 7- Thoae which have short hairs on the tace, under the arm, and inside the thigh. 8. Any with very coarse wool about the breech and tail. 9. Any with long hairß appearing on the surface of the fleece. 10. Any sheep whose wool at shearing time is less than one inch ou the ribs or wither. 11. Any long-legged, Bmall-bodied sheep. 12. Sheep dipped in the back, or otherwise mis-shapen. It is not unusual to hear people descanting on the merits of some particular animal, and windiog up by declaring that the wool on him "opened like a book." Either the phrase or the idea is incorrect. Wool, when you open it on the Bheep, should not open in long layers j on the contrary, no part of the fleece should open but that which you actually touch, and no disturbance should t c apparent at a distance of three or four inches from your hand. In a really good fleece, every fibre of wool should grow independent of any other, like hairs in a broom, and no two should be entangled with each other from root to point. Sound wool of thiß kind would comb well, if no more than' an inch or inch and a half in length. By carefully culling such defective animals out of such flocks yearly, both the quantity and quality of the wool will improve rapidly, aud it is more than useless to keep them, since their orogeny will be worse than themselves. *It does not require any great amount of skill, or even of common sense, to detect these glaring imperfections ; yet if these brief hints be carefully and intelligently put into practice, little will De left for the classer to do, and whilst doing this the farmer will soon be able to detect other faults.