WILD PIGS KILL LAMBS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18918, 21 January 1936, Page 8

WILD PIGS KILL LAMBS

DISTRICT IN TARANAKI HEAVY LOSSES SUFFERED Serious mortality among lambs through attacks by wild pigs have been reported by farmers of the Whanga momona district, 40 miles from Stratford, Taranaki. Tt is stated that much damage is done during the lambing season by pigs which live in great numbers in the bush behind Whangamomona.

“I have seen pigs preying on lambs myself,” said one farmer. “There are many farmers round here who can toll you the same. It is no fairy tale, but a very serious thing for the farmer. Often a man will lose 30 to 40 lambs a season that way.”

The sows with a litter at foot were the worst offenders, he said. It was not very long ago that from the top of a ridge he saw a wild pig at work. He thought at first it was feeding among the thistles near the edge ot the hush, hut as he watched he saw it gradually working its way toward a well-grown lamb a little apart from the others. Presently the lamb became curious about the noise behind the thistles and moved over to look The sow seized it in one bite, without having a yard to run. That was in daylight, hut most of the damage he said, was done at night. At the beginning of the lambing season a neighbor lost two or three lambs every night for a while. The continuous loss of lambs had had serious results for not a few farmers, stated another settler. He said he knew of a man who was managing a property and who lost his position because his lambing percentages were so low —about CO to 70 per cent, li was not'until tiie shee) were moved to another quarter that the source of tlie* trouble was realised He had himself noticed that his percentages would very often be 100 tc 114 for the sheep in the front paddocks and down to 70 In the back country, the sheep in each case receiving the same attention. The differences were too consistent to he mere coincidences.

■'Pigs have pur many a man off bif farm," n.svierted the settler. "The value of the 40, DO or 00 lambs lost each year would easily pay the interest on the property 111 many eases."