LAMBS ON PEAS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4451, 9 August 1922, Page 4

LAMBS ON PEAS.

| INTERESTING EXPERIMENT. I An interesting experiment in fati tening lambs on forage crops has been carried out at Moumahiaki, the experiment being undertaken because the growing of rape had become ra-> ( thnr precarious on many of the oldfashioned farms. A fodder that could be ■substituted for rape was thus badly wanted. The station, therefor®, d<s- - cided to test a crop of field peas in ! comparison with a rape crop. On the | same day crops of field peas and r;ape were sown in adjoining fields, with ’ the soil in each very similar. Eqaul areas were sown in each field, and ! each crop received the same treatj ment and manuring. The crops were | ready by February 2, when a lot of j very level crossobred lambs by a I Southdown ram were divided up. i weighed, and put in equal numbers on each field. The lambs had not re- ' ceived any artificial food previously, and had been running on fresh pasture. Between February 2 and 22 th.? rape-fed lambs made an average gam per lamb of 9.411 b, and those fed on the field peas an average gain of 12.681 b, the gain in favour of the pea forage being 3.271 b per' lamb. We are told in the report that "the lambs on rape made the most headway during the first two weeks, but the main weigh': of the Jambs on the peas during the third and final week was re- ’ markable.”—Franklin Times.