OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 1 July 1903, Page 8

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

BRADFORD, May 1. OOMMONSENSB REMARKS ABOUT

SHEEP.

"The hoof of the sheep is golden." That may have been true when it was first written, when wool was worth half-a-crown per Ib, but not when it is worth, sixpence!

It k the early lamb that catches the worm — i.e., the best price.

If you have a good market either for sheep or wool close to home patronise it.

The wool market i» better, and likely to remain so. After a ewe has droppedta lamb it is a good plan to seize her and carefully removo all the wool growing in the immediate vicinity of the udder. Number** of lambs are lost .©very year through, the young things swallowing loose wool while refreshing themr setlves from, time to time at the maternal fountain.

This wool passes into the 6tomaoh, where it collects into globular masses, the appearance of which is but too well known to flockmasters and shepherds under tho name of wool balls.

Unconscious ingesticm of the wool in the manner indicated is not, however, the only cause of wool balls in lambs. They are very frequently due to a deranged digestion, in which case the animal purposely picks up and chews at locks of wool just as cows sometimes do with pieces of wood. Iv such cases it is usually found that tho primary cause of the trouble is the lack of isonw of the essential constituents in the milk yielded by the &we.

As a "preventive against thie, many ex-psri'e'nce-d flock-masters give their ewes an increa.sed allowance of salt after lambing, and there is every reason to believe that tho salt so administered^ exorcises a corrective influence on the milt.

If the lambs are noticed when they first contract the habit of takimg the wool the administration of a purgative may have the ■effect of removing any wool which may have collected in the stomach ; but if the praotioe has been carried on for «.ny length of time, and the balls have assumed any size, or become at all hard, their removal is practically impossible.

Most of the Down breeds of sheep aro much more subject to foot rot than their whibe-faoed relatives. The explanation given for their weakness on this point ifl that the land upon which these sheep have been running for generations is very hard, and covered with short and generally dry herbage.

On land suoh as this the feet never sink into the ground, co that there is no need for the claws to spread out in order to support the weight of the animals. fhe result is that the olaws naturally stand very close together, and that the skin between them consequently becomes very thin and delioatp>.

The feet of the white-faced sheep are considerably larger in 6iae than those of thx* Down breeds, and the claw» are much more open, with the result that tibe 6kin between them thus becomes comparatively hard and firm, and in mamv cases is found covered with a short growth of hair. Thft large size and (jreat wi/lth. apart of the claws of the long-woolle<l aheeo are the natural outcome of these animals having been kiept for years on arable and lowlvinsf lands, the surfaoo of which is often so soft that the feet have a tendency to sink ir.to it.

To adarrt themselves to such oiroumstanoee the feot liavo exranded in order to be beW&r able to resist the tmdency to eink. "Tha liprbntr« of thn low-lying land* on which th<;«e lonpr-woolled broods a r*> ryrincinally mci with i« also lon-cr and iwnal'v much wetter than that mot with on the Dowdb, bo that a brPed of sheep possp^ed of fw>t wbioli '•p-adilv nipturA between tho claws wouJrf not he at all suitable for Tvnnff V«d<; upon thorn. Shortly nut. th^ diffrr^no^ betwoftn the short and the Ion? wool'Wl breeds in this r«i=T>eot aro the natura.l outcome of tlvo caaHitions under which tho animala have bee-n fept. Like the c-hovfhr.rn, tl«» Rhronshiro sheep Pois=pm a wonderful facnlity for adapting itself to ciromnsfcitHH's. T'»ia is one of tlvft &N>w»ts to tho sr^at pop\ilarity and wide di^tnbutioa of th© breM at tho present da.y