MOULTING SHEEP

Hokitika Guardian, 22 June 1932, Page 5

MOULTING SHEEP

A NEW DISCOVERY MADE.

SOVIET SCIENTISTS’ CLAIM

(United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

LONDON, June 19

The artificial moulting of sheep and rabbits four times a year, by which the wool or hair peels off in a compact mass and leaves the body smooth and shiny as a bald man’s pate, is claimed to have been discovered by Professor Ilyin, says the Riga correspondent of “The Times.”

This will produce, according to the Soviet Commissar of Industry, a revolution in the Russian wool industry. He declares that Soviet scientists have achieved a, great victory over the British and Japanese, who abandoned the field of chemicalising wool-bearing animals.

Professor Ilyin gives a sheep a small dose of “heavy metal salts,” which acts on the sympathetic nerve system. After a few days the fleece can be removed. It will grow again more rapidly than after shearing. :

The .professor also claims to be able to make sheep moult in two stages. First, the finer fleeces ; then the coarser Thus, the roughest sheep would yield some fine wool. ■ A similar system is applicable to rabbits and dogs. Professor Ilyin has already gained fame with experiments for changing the colour of rabbits’ coats by mineral salts. He is now specially authorised to organise moulting on a large scale in the chief slieeprearing districts and rabbit-’arms.