OVER-FEEDING OF BREEDING STOCK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 29 January 1908, Page 6

OVER-FEEDING OF BREEDING STOCK.

The practice of feeding animals intended for exhibition up to an inordinate fatness is not now so common as it was in time pasb, but it still prevails to a greater iektent than is good .either for the animals so fattened or for their progeny — df they can produce any. There is no good reason why breeding stock, at anyrate, should bs so over-fed ; judges are not now hoodwinked by a defect in conformation sought to be concealed . beneath a weight of fet7 and while an animal to succeed on the show-ground must be in good condition, one which is loaded with an excess of adipose will seldom figure high in the prize-list— indeed, such a on© will be regarded with suspicion from the time it receives -the first glance of the judge, and may even be set down as suffering from a fault or defect which it dojS not possess. Still some exhibitors persist in piling as much flesh or fat as possible upon the frames of their animals, regardless of the following non-success in com- | petition or in breeding. The failure in the former spTiere is the owner's concern ; j he generally attributes it to any reason i but the right one ; but in the latter re- | spect an injury is -don© to stockbreeding generally, more especially if the animal is a. stallion which is at public service. Over-fed animals rarely produce good off1 spring, and the owner of a mare, for in- ! stance, who is induced by imposing apI pearancßS to make use of the services of a plethoric stallion will probably be ex- | tTemely disappointed Trit htlie result or I absence of result. As a fact, excessive fatness is a disease, and the disposition of certain classes of stock to put on fat is a resiult of continuous breeding for this characteristic. A certain amount of fat as put on in particular parts of the boHy by all animals, but excess in those -parts and large deposits in other parts_ is, evidence of an abnormal condition^ which may be regarded as in the nature of '. disease, being formed, we are told, from the decomposition d the protoplasm. Thus the prejudice which is held by many breeders against the use, of 6how stock for stud purposes cannot be regarded ag otherwise than well-founded. The probability is strong that the -progeny of -sivery fat animals Tvill be inferior in ', quality and constitution "to the progeny, of -animate which -have "been, kept m good 1 natural condition, just as it is to be expected that the off-spring of those suffering from any other disease would be in1 ierior to stock' bred from "healthy parents. LAn example of. cultivated hereditary obesity is pTesent&d by tbe shorthorn breed of cattle. This," as we all .know, was a great milking "breed, as can ,be seen I by the portraits still extant of old 1 specimens. When beef became the chief desideratum the fattening qualities weTe I carefully fostered and developed, and the ! beef shorthorn, of the present day is the result* Yet even the breeder of the prize oxen of our shows will -rake care that he does .not allow bis breeding cattle to be similarly fattened, though they are bred for fattening characteristics. The disastrous results which have followed the introduction of a bxill of this character into a dairy herd are only' too well known ; the resulting heifers have "not , had enough milt io rear ili-eir own calves," as the saying is, and the steers have been of poor, unthrifty quality. S° ft is with, horses and sheep and even with pigs whose nature it might be thought is "to be fat. The whole matter is one of the phases of the gTeat question of heredity, which is rightly receiving much more- attention Ixom stock-breeders than , has hitherto in modern times been given to it.