COLOURING SHOW SHEEP.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1169, 3 July 1911, Page 8

COLOURING SHOW SHEEP.

ANCIENT HISTORY. A writer in .the "Live Stock Journal" [London) says that tho colouring of show sheep ; has teen a subject of discussion For many years; but it is probably not generally known what old practices trimming and colouring' arc. "One certainly remembers,'' ho says, "when there .was nothing like so.much done in the showyard as there tab been in recent yeans! At tho fame t.inic, it is a very old "practice, as is shown by Banister's report on it more than a century ajo. where, in remarks on Weyhill Fair, he warns the buyers against 'the knavery of the taller . . . -. who by dexterously removing with the shears each staring lock, colouring their fleeces with 1 ochre or reddle, adds so smart an air to their appearance ;and often these arts tend in a considerable degree towards hiding from the observation' of the chapman some very material defect. .Symptoms of tho rot, a distemper of. all others most to he dreaded, have often been decoitfully hidden by colouring the white of tho eyes, and thus transferring the bright and vivid look which is the characteristic of health to the sickly and languid appearance of that organ.'

"Thero is, of course," continues tho writer, "nothing wrong in giving a different tint to the outside of the wcol. ■Sheep themselves get this when they lie on soils of different colour, and same roils impart a tinge more favourable to the appearance than do others. So long .as colouring is employed to put animals on even terms when under competition there can bo nothing wrongful, provided it is. confined to merely making them look mere presentable; but when tho colouring or oiling is done to hide constitutional blemishes or breed faults, the matter becomes a wholly different one.

."Some colouring is obviously done to hide faults, and for this there is no excuse, and far morn stringent ruling should be brought to bear than is usually motod out. So far o-s colouring goes, it should be . limited to external, so that there shall bo no discoloration of the skin. Where colour is obviously ■ worked in to, destrjy the chanco of the detection of badly-coloured skin or wool, disqualification should be enforced. So much colouring would not be rubbed in behind the setting on of the head of many, sheep were it not that there is more dark hair there ■ (than the exhibitor desires others should know of. Painting out. is not allowed on whole-coloured breeds of cattle, and it oug'nt.not to be in the case of sheep. Oiling to make the sheep pratically untouchable has' nothing to recommend it. and of itself arouses suspicion; anything which prevents judies from '. niokin.tr unhindered inspection should be held to be ground for disqualification. There has been improvement in Kospect to' oiling, but not enough yet."