STUD SHEEP

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21324, 19 April 1939, Page 8

STUD SHEEP

MORTALITY AFTER DIPPING ACTION FOR DAMAGES Bj Telegraph—Press Association CHRISTCHURCH, April 18. The hearing of the claim by Alan Grant, sheep-farmer, of Waimate, against Cooper, MacDougall, and Robertson, Ltd., sheep-dip manufacturers, of Manchester, was continued before Mr Justice Northcroft and a special jury to-day, when the plaintiff was cross-examined. Alleging that a sheep-dip manufactured by the defendant company killed 37 of his Romney and Southdown rams, including valuable stud animals, and depreciated the value of 156 sheep. Grant is asking for £656/6/- for the sheep that died, £163/16/- for depreciation of other sheep, and £lOOO general damages.

Mr W. J. Sim and Mr T. A. Gresson are appearing for the plaintiff; Mr A. T. Donnelly and Mr A. M. Gould for the defendant.

Cross-examined by Mr Donnelly, Grant said that he had had 30 years’ experience as a breeder of stud stock, and was postive that the sheep died from absorptive poisoning. Had the sheep inhaled dip into their lungs, traces of it would have been found in the post-mortem examination, while if the method of dipping or the construction of the dip or yards was at fault the losses would have been spread throughout the flock, instead of only the first dipped suffering. He had used fluid dip only once before in New Zealand before 1935, when the loss occurred.

The name of MacDougall was famous in the sheep-dip business, Grant continued, and the dip was a standard preparation, and supposed to have a good reputation. He had no trouble in getting the sheep into the dip, as they were box-fed and very quiet. After-dipping mortality was known in New Zealand, the fault being sometimes on the part of the farmer. Effect of Temperature

The sheep were dipped on a fine day, and put out in a paddock for the night. It would take a day or two for the wool to dry, but if the night was cold, it would do them no harm, as sheep were, in his opinion, very little affected by the weather.

Dipping was mainly a matter of common sense, said Grant, and needed care and attention, though not altogether a skilled task. Although afterdipping mortality in New Zealand was not uncommon, he had never lost any sheep.

The witness said that he had never known of sheep getting pneumonia, nor of their suffering from chill after dipping. Stud rams were in perfect physical condition, and therefore more resistarft to illness than other sheep. Grant said that he had heard of sheep dying through inhaling sheepdip into their lungs. A sheep was likely to inhale the dip if its head was pushed under while it was gasping for breath, but if properly handled, as his sheep were, they would not be gasping for breath. It was only recently, Grant maintained, that it had been discovered that sheep could absorb poison through their skins.

Since 1935. Grant said, he had heard of another breeder having lost sheep through absorption of carbolic dip through the skin. Detailing the results of the postmortem examination of the dead sheep, Grant said that there was no trace of dip in the lungs. The examining veterinary surgeon. Patterson, said that he thought the sheep had died of some sort of pneumonia, but explained it in such technical terms that Grant could not follow. The veterinary curgeon told him that the pneumonia was definitely not causing by the sheep breathing dip into their lungs, and he could not understand why Patterson should say, in a certificate given to the defendant company’s representative a few days later, that l:e pneumonia was probably caused by the sheep inhaling either the dip or fumes from it. Samples Examined The plaintiff agreed that a sample of the dip used by him had been compared with the standard samples in the defendant company’s factory and found to agree exactly. Examined on his answers to interrogatories obtained for the guidance of the defendant company. Grant admitted that therein he had said that the only abnormality revealed in the post-mortem examination of the sheep was mild Inflammation of the lungs. There was nothing to show that the sheep had inhaled the dip.

Grant said that he understood that the inflammation of the lungs showed pneumonia, which Patterson considered to have been caused by the absorption of poison through the skin. He had not noticed, when opening the sheep, the various symptoms described by the veterinary surgeon, who was making a detailed examination of the organs while he was opening up other bodies.

Experiments in South Africa had shown, said Grant, that sheep could be poisoned by the absorption of carbolic acid through the skin.