FEEDING SHEEP ON SORGHUM

Southland Times, Issue 23716, 14 January 1939, Page 12

FEEDING SHEEP ON SORGHUM

SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT IN QUEENSLAND

Feeding sheep on sorghum is the latest method adopted with success in the Pittsworth district, Darling Downs, Queensland. It is the result of an experiment by Mr G. J. Will, a successful fanner and grazier, whose quality of stock and produce are well known on the Darling Downs. A noted exhibitor and prize winner at Downs shows and Brisbane exhibitions, Mr Will began feeding his sheep on sorghum two years ago. Having succeeded in this experiment, he increased his acreage to 44, planting the cow pea and ordinary black and white varieties as well as a small area of Feterita. In addition, 36 acres was second year’s growth harvested the previous year for seed. Numbering 1000 head, the sheep have been fed for the last five months on sorghum when just coming out in head between four and five feet high. At the last Pittsworth show Mr Will won the prize for a pen of 10 lambs for export. Weaned one month before the show, the lambs were fed on sorghum, as were also their mothers. In Mr Will’s opinion, no other feed for sheep could compare with sorghum, not even green wheat. His sheep, have thrived on sorghum; the wool clip has improved in quantity and quality; drenching is no longer necessary, as no worm trouble has been experienced since feeding his sheep on sorghum. Put on sorghum for the first time, the sheep took about two or three days to get used to it, and then they ate ravenously. Experience’ proved that the sheep, when fed on sorghum, drank little water even in the height of summer, and that the second year’s growth was not poisonous, as some breeders . erroneously understand. Reports reveal that Mr Will had not lost any sheep, and that they had been fed on sorghum in all stages of its second growth from the small green shoots at the butt to out-in-head. When eaten down, it was noticed that sorghum began to shoot quickly after rain, and also during certain times when grass would not. Experience proved to Mr Will that sorghum was most profitable when allowed to go on for two years. Then he had it ploughed up and resown. It was found that the advantage of allowing the second growth from the crop was that feed was obtained quickly in early spring from the growth. Mr Will claimed that a crop of sorghum sown in January or February would carry sheep right through the winter, particularly if frost came before the seed matured as frost prevented the seed from maturing and ripening, and that the stalk would then keep green and succulent right through the winter. Mr Will predicted that when the advantages of the sheep-feeding qualities pf sorghum were better known it would be considerably sought after by sheepmen. A few acres of sorghum were, in his opinion, worth many acres of green land.