STOCK AND GRAZING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3763, 27 April 1926, Page 19

STOCK AND GRAZING NOTES.

Weekly stsck Sties. Burnaide. Wednesdays. Addington, Wednesday*. Waiareka Railway Junction, Tuesdays. Fortnightly. Blversdale, Fridays, Wallacetown, Tuesuoys. Ashburton, Tuesdays. Heriot, Thursdays. JfintOn, Thursdays. Wyndham, Thursdays. Clinton, Thursdays. Bslolutha, Fridays. Gore, Tuesdays. Ninthly. Sdendale, Ist Slcndty. Palmerston, 4th Thursday. iWinton, 4tn Tuesday, lfataura, Ist Thursday. Tokanui, 4th Monday.

Ninthly (contlnusd). Ountroon, 2nd Wednes* <t*y. Woodlands, 3rd We* nesaay. Hilton, 2nd Tuesday. Balfour, Jrd Thursday. Thorubury, Ist Friday. Otautau, 2nd Wednetday. Biversdale, Srd Friday. Waikaka, last Friday. CJydevalc, last Friday Periodically at Advertised. Lamsdea. Mossbara, Orepukl, Wsimahaka, Waikountti. Riverton, N'gapara, and Otago Central 6ales.

) OTAGO. The best of weather in Otago. In the country good progress was made with the late harvest, the yields of cereals being most satisfactory, while the growth in general of fodder crops was pleasing. As for the city suffice it to sav that the Exhibition made its record attendance on Saturday. BURNSIDE MARKET. The yarding oi fat sheep at Burnside was very similar to the previous week, some 2500 being penned. The quality was good, and although ewes bulked up largely their quality was very fair, while heavy wethers were in good supply. Prices were irregular, but generally on a lower plane than a week ago. _ Some pennings were passed in at auction. Last sales lower rates ruled for heavy wethers, but ewes were down Is 6d per head, with medium wethers also cheaper, the latter sales being the cheapest. Export buyers secured a number of ewes. Some 600 fat lambs were penned, their quality being fair, but on the heavy side, with also odd lots of unfinished lambs. There was a good clearance despite export buying being made at lower limits, butchers taking a fair number of suitable weights. Lamb was making to 9Jd or Is less than at the previous sale. The yarding of fat cattle was large. .350, which, following upon an entry the previous week of 330, served to ease values in places. The quality was fairly good, some very prime southern consignments of bullocks and heifers being featured. Good sorts of cows and a sprinkling of plain steers also were penned. The demand opened about 15s down on medium weight, prime steers, which practically held at that throughout the sale, although on choice bullocks the fall was somewhat less per head. Cows and heifers cheapened considerably. however* Prime ox may be quoted as making up to 40s per 1001 b. An overflowing entry of store cattle evoked good competition for the well-bred, conditioned three-year-old steers yarded, some 40 head of these making £9 10s, £ll 17s, £l2, and £l3 6s per head for yard lots. The balance, comprising well conditioned cows and medium young cattle, showed little change in values, one-and-a-half-year-old steers, good sorts, making £4 3s. A moderate entry of fat pigs met an enhanced demand, baconers moving off at up to Bid, and porkers (unchanged) to 9|d per lb; stores unchanged. NORTH ISLAND STORE STOCK VALUES. The position in regard to stock remains very much the same as a week ago. the business in anything except “ fats ” being meagre. Beef in the Auckland province realises up to 30s per 1001 b, good two and a-half-year-old steers to £6 10s, medium £4 10s, medium wethers 20s .to 265, medium fat lambs 18s to 20s, store woolly lambs 18s 6d. In the Wanganui-Feilding areas good ewe crossbred 'woolly lambs made 18s, good wether lambs to 17s, small shorn ewe lambs 8s 3d, fair woolly sorts 15s, mixed wethers 21s to 235, two to three-year-old Shorthorn steers £3 11s, fair three and a-half-year-olds £5 15s, extra to £9. In Palmerston North fair three-year-old bullocks made up to £6, good weaner steers to £2 19s. inferior 16s to 30s, wethers 235. lambs 6s Cd to 14s 3d, extra 16s 6d. In Hawke’s Bay twotooth wethers made to 18s, shorn wether lambs to 11s, culls 7s. The weather has been very dry, and winter cattle feed is problematical. At the Masterton sale, where some 5000 sheep were offered, the following prices were paid:—Good five-year-old ewes 16s Gd. small two-tooth ewes 18s. full mouths 14s Id. mixed ages 17s Bd, two-tooth wethers 16s 6d to 235, woolly lambs 13s lid, cull wethers 14s 9d to 15s 9d. STOCK NOTES. Although values of fat cattle, sheep, and lambs have, if anything, tended downwards in the Burnside metropolitan market the demand for well-bred store stock in Otago is well maintained. This is doubtless due to the comparative wealth of feed in the paddocks alonr the coast, and the undeniable good prospects of winter keep during the incoming season, together with the high condition most store animals are carrying. The prospects of beef seem good, while well-bred steers are not too plentiful. I n regard to store sheep the wool * is always growing, and breeding ewes have sustained inquiry, dairymen electing to run a few old ewes in many instances, with the idea of marketing at Christmas time a 20s lamb, with no harm to the cow feed, always provided not too many are carried on the pastures. The annual sale of surplus stock at the Ruakura Farm of Instruction was conducted recently by the Farmers’ Co-opera-tive Auctioneering Company (Ltd.). There was a large attendance of buyers, places as far distant as Kaipara, Westport, Kaitaia. and Canterbury being represented. There was a good demand for young pedigree milking Shorthorn bulls, but prices were below those of last year. They sold at from 12gns to 38gns, the latter price being paid by Mr Moore, of Canterbury, for Dominion Tyrone of Ruakura. A number of others realised over 30gus. Jersey bulls were not much in demand, 25gns being the top price. Ayrshire bulls were not wanted, and were all passed in. Milking Shorthorn heifers

sold well at prices raugiug from 12gns to 21gns. Jersey heifers realised up to 13gns, but there was no demand for Ayrshire heifers. There was keen competition for the* pigs, and very satisfactory prices were obtained. Berkshire boars and sows sold up to 13gns, and large whites up to Cgns. It is just 59 years ago (says an exchange) that Gustavus F. Swift, then cattle dealer, moved to Chicago and began his experiment in the shipment of dressed beef from the mid-west to east of the United States. This was practically the genesis of the packing trade, and the year book sketches its progress, as far as Swifts are concerned, from that act to the present day. Even American can tell few stories of more rapid and remarkable development. The net profit made for the 12 months ended 31st Octo' -r, 1925, was £3,076,000, which permits of a dividend of 8 per cent, being paid on the capital stock of £30,000,009 and £G76.000 added to surplus. The latter stands at just on £14,000,000.

xhe number of Canadian cattle received on the farms of Great Britain for further feeding during 1925 was greater than in the previous year. Some 82,540 cattle consigned (says a Home paper) as stores were imported from Canada during the year, but about 50,000 of these were slaughtered on arrival, so that only about 32,000 were licensed out of the landing places to farms. In 1924' the number arriving consigned as stores was 45,853 and the number licensed out for further feeding was some 14,500, so that as compared with 1924 more than twice as many Canadian cattle have been seen on British farms this year. From the beginning of June until the end of the year cattle consigned as stores have arrived fairly regularly, the number received each week, with the exception of three weeks, lying between 1500 and 3400, the total during the seven months being 66,737, or 84 per cent, of the total for the year. THE SMITHFIELD CLUB. The ever-widening demand for small joints is reflected in the recent decisions of the Council of the Smithfield Club, when the following amended classification was adopted in cattle and sheep classes: Cattle. —That for the 1927 show the class at present for British Friesian steers not exceeding three years old be deleted, and that a class be instituted for British Friesian steers not exceeding two years old. That the winning crossbred heifers not exceeding 15 months old exhibited in classes 47 and 53 compete for the champion cup previously offered for steers i t exceeding 15 months old, and that this cup be now offered for competition between the prize winning animals entered in the not exceeding fifteen-months-old classes. Sheep.—That the classes for shearling wethers of the Leicester, Lincoln, Kentish, or Romney, Marsh, Cotswold, etc*.. Suffolk. Shropshire, and Oxford Down breeds be deleted from the 1927 prize schedule. That classes for ewe lambs of these seven breeds be instituted at the 1927 show, with similar prizes as were offered in the deleted classes. PURPOSE OF FLUSHING. The term “flushing” simply means a general stimulation of the whole of the internal organisation of the animal. The is to increase, say, the number of lambs at lambing time, or perhaps the number of pigs at farrowing time. This purpose is accomplished by increased feeding of sheen on more succulent or fresh pastures than have been available before tupping time, that is before “joining the rams-” There is no reason why the pig breeder should not adopt the same practice with his breeding sows, especially with sows that are advancing in age, and that might otherwise produce rather unsatisfactory litters (writes Mr E. J. Shelton, of the Queensland Department of Agriculture). The most beneficial results are obtained when the flushing begins two or three weeks before the breeding season opens. Supposing that the sows have been running on pasture alone during the greater part of the “off” season; at the beginning of the breeding season, or when the sows are about to be mated, they should be turned into a fresh patch of rape, or lucerne, or other green stuff. In the case of a single sow, the breeder might begin by feeding a slop composed of milk and pollard or wheat or maize meal, etc., and give more than the usual supply of green food. The idea is to stimulate the whole system without putting on any great amount of fat. It is. of course, expected that the animals will begin to gain a little more rapidly in early spring or as the breeding season opens, and the majority of breeders will see to it that their stock put on flesh at this time, but it is important that the sows should be in the medium breeding condition, and be gaining in weiriit and flesh at the time when they are mated. After the sow has been mated, continue the practice for a week or two before turning her out to pasture. All sows should, of course, be kept in good breeding condition during the gestation period, but there is no necessity that they should be ‘“rolling” in fat. EXPORT OF STUD SHEEP. The export of New Zealand purebred Romneys and Corriedales abroad invariably makes interesting reading to country settlers, who view the steady growth in this class of business with considerable pride and pleasure. One of the largest and most important consignments of Romney and Corriedale sheep that has left New Zealand was recently selected and filled by Messrs Dalgety and Co. (Ltd.), Wellington, the shipment going forward by the Tairoa, which left Wellington on March 30. This shipment of 333 head was made on behalf of 12 large station owners to the Falkland Islands, where sheep-fanning commenced as far back as 1864, and during the period of 62 years which have elapsed those .engaged in the industry have been keen woolgrowers. Nevertheless during the past 30 years the carrying capacity of the islands has declined, as in 1898 the country was carrying 807,000 sheep, whereas in 1923 the figures were reduced to 647,085. Mr Hugh Munro, principal district inspector of the Department of Agriculture, New Zealand, who during 1924 made a special visit to the islands at the request of the British Government, in his report on investigations mpde on methods of sheep farming there, blamed injudicious burning and overstocking for the decreased

carrying capacity, aud said that unfortunately the best country seemed to have suffered the greatest damage by such methods of fanning.

It is stated that but few stations are able to rear sufficient young sheep to enable them to cull to a limited extent for both quality aud age, and that on the majority of properties the trouble has reached a stage at which the annual increase is barely sufficient to maintain the flocks without any culling, excepting for dead old age, while on a few that stage has been passed, aud sheep must he imported from outside to maintain the flocks. The mortality among sheep under the age of one year is very heavy, the death rate in many instances being as high as 30 per cent. It is hoped that the order just executed by Dalgety and Co. will do much to improve the flocks of the pastoralists who are interested in the consignment, and although some Falkland ruuholders prefer the merino and Corriedale to the Romney, it is generally recognised that the latter breed is superior and more suitable than any other for the climatic and soil conditions of the Falk lands.

Before this order was finally selected the firm’s representative visited many well-known flocks in the Wairarapa, Manawatu, and Wanganui districts, and as heavy boned, large framed, fine wooiled sheep were specially asked for, a careful individual inspection was made of each sheep purchased. It was unfortunate the selections had to be made so late in the season (February), as many well-known breeders had by then disposed of their best sheep. The difficulty in securing a definite freight was the reason why an earlier selection could not be made. Particulars of the sheep secured are as under: —E. E. Short (Flock No. 826), 25 shearling stud rams, four shearling flock rams. Estate of E. Short (Flock No. 77), 20 shearling flock rams, 25 shearling flock ewes. W. Gibson, Kiwitea (Flock No. 126), six shearling flock rams. A. E. Sandilands (Flock No. 351), 10 shearling flock rams, two stud rams. A. and J. Gray, Masterton (Flock 287), two shearling flock rams, 50 shearling flock ewes. K. and F. Gray, Masterton (Flock 38), two shearling stud rams, 42 shearling flock ewes. N. P. Neilsen, Longburn (Flock 260), 12 shearling flock rams. Boss Brothers, Longbum (Flock 115), 23 shearling flock rams, 29 shearling flock ewes. T. MEwen, Longburn (Flock 584), 21 shearling flock ewes. W. Peat, Wanganui (Flock 535), 25 shearling flock ewes, Corriedales: 0. T. Evans, Canterbury (Flock 18), 25 shearling stud ewes, 10 shearling stud rams. Total shipment, 333. . Messrs Dalgety and Co. have received cable advice that the sheep reached their destination safely and in good order Un April 16 after a good voyage. It is lioped they do well, as an infusion of new blood seems, to be very necessary in the Falkland Islands, and with satisfactory results from this shipment repeat orders may well be expected to - follow.