SHEEP BREEDING

Taranaki Daily News, 18 February 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

SHEEP BREEDING

PREPARING FOR SEASON nnrfS FOR GOOD LAMBING. ATTENTION TO EWES AND LAMBS. Fanners. throughout Taranaki will shortly be preparing their ewes and rams for the breeding season. Those breeders Who are intending to obtain early lambs Will naturally be starting their operations earlier that the hill country. farmers, but the. seqond week in March should see the majority of the matings made. Careful preparations for the mating season will do a great deal towards obtaining good lambing percentages from the ewes, and farmers who devote a little additional time to this work will find that their efforts will be amply repaid in increased returns. -The farmer has first to deal with his rams. Both long woolled and short Woolled. rams require similar treatment, except that the Southdowns, and other fine woolled breeds do not require the removal of the belly wood. The feet should be inspected, and trimmed and footrotted where necessary. Naturally rams will not travel so well if their feet are in poor condition. ■ ' With the long wools, such as the Romneys; it is advisable to. trim up the belly wool with the blade shears. Care should be taken to leave a good quantity of the ' brisket wool on the animaL With the ewes, the feet should be gone over, and trimmed up where necessary. The blade shears should be used to crutch and clean up the hind-quarters, and the tail should be squared up. On easy flat country, and where small paddocks are being Used, one ram should be sufficient to run with fifty ewes. On the more hilly country, and where larger paddocks .are being used, one ram with every forty ewes is the maximum that should, be run. - t As to the number of ewes to have in <®e paddock, most good farmers agree that three hundred ewes with six rams is the greatest number that can be run in a paddock, if maximum efficiency Is to be obtained. ► FLUSHING THE EWES.. A supply of succulent green feed is especially valuable at this time for feeding to the ewes for about a. week or ten days prior to mating. Such feed may be provided by rape after its first feeding off by the lames. lucerne Is recommended by farmers who have tried j.f while farmers who have neither rape, nor' such a green crop, should endeavour to have a field of fresh young grass available on which to put the ewes. ' Some breeders recommend fasting the ewes before putting them on to the succulent feed. This is quite an established system, and well worth trying on farms where it has not been done previously. The fall of rain that the district is at present experiencing should be a great help in providing the green feed on which to flush the ewes. Aliy ewes which are in too heavy condition should be fasted until their condition comes down to normal. Such eyes, if not fasted, become very prone to such conditions as sleepy sickness (ante-partum paralysis) later in the season. It is very rarely that one . hears or, hardy hill country ewes suffering from this- complaint, it being confined mostly to the sheep on the richer flatter pasA point to beware of is not to dip the ewes just prior to mating. There should be at least a fortnight’s interval in between. This is particularly the case when a poisonous arsenical dip is being used. The rams should all have been dipped just before Christmas. When all the rams are turned into the same paddock , with the ewes, it is often noticed .that the rams spend a great deal of their time and energy in fighting each other. The following plan, which, is recommended, by many s “ e ?P _ men obviates a great deal of this fighting:— FIGHTING RAMS. The system is applicable particularly to farms where small paddocks are the rule. Separate the ewes into small lots of fifty to sixty in each group, and put one ram with each batch. After a period of about fourteen days mix two of the groups for ten days. In other words, reduce the number of groups by half. After this period, allow all the ewes and runs to run together until the end of the mating season. This system is, of only applicable to flock breeding. With stud flocks, breeders have" their own individual methods. When mating flock ewes, farmers should select ewes which have conformity in wool type with the ram. Do not pair a hairy woolled ewe with a fine woolled ram, unless the aim is to improve the wool, in which .case there should not be too big a difference in grading. With ewes which are being used for the production of fat lambs, .the main feature to go after Is a good carcase and constitution. Unless a ewe has these two characteristics well developed the resulting lamb will not be particularly good. Of course, the ram used for fat lamb matings has a great- influence on , the progeny. . • PRODUCTIVE JERSEY COW. The latest addition to the select register of cows in Australia that have attained the distinction of having produced 1,0001b.' of butter in 273 days is Kelvinside Brown Lustre, a member of the Narooma registered Jersey herd of Mr. A. R. Martin, near Wagga (N.S.W.). In her recently completed official lactation her figures were:—Milk,. 15,483J1b.; butter-fat, 849.861 b. which is equal to 1,023.81 b. butter. She is a six-year-old, bred by Mr. A. H. Booker, Kelvinside, Lismore (N.S.W.), by Springmead Beau by Springmead Osram (imp. in dam), ex Brown Chief’s Fuchsia 2nd of .Wollingurry. The dam of her sire, Springmead Beauty- is by Werribee Fancy’s Madeira’s King, bred in Victoria by Mr. .G. T. Chirnside, in ' which the blood of Lord Twylish (imp.) and Island Butter King (imp.) is combined. The sire of her dam, Brown Chief, saw the liglht of day .in the Victorian stud of Mr. C D. -LloydC and is by, Mabels Cluef (imp.) ex Brown Bread (imp. in dam)( a daughter of that great test and show cow Sweetbread 24th (imp.). There is a strong . infusion of the famous Golden Lad blood in her ancestry through Noble of Oaklands, and his illustrious son Golden Fem’s Noble. She has done well under official test, but her .latest performance eclipsed all her previous efforts. The Narooma herd, which was established in 1927, has rapidly come to the front, and ranks as one of the best from a type and production standpoint in New South Wales. It contains, m addition to Kelvinside Brown Lustre, a number of exceptionally well-bred females which have proved their ability to yield large quantities of milk and butter-fat, w|ule heifers bred in the herd promise to ex- | ceed the records of their dams. Con- ( structive breeding and efficient management are responsible for the progress of the Narooma herd. ■