AMONG THE WHO SHEEP.

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 28, 24 April 1924, Page 4

AMONG THE WHO SHEEP.

COUNTLESS FLOCKS IN MARL BOROUGH.

In the back country of Marlborough, round the range of hills known as “ The Bounds,” there are great herds of wild sheej), led by fierce old rams, says the Marlborough Express. Thousands of acres of good sheep country are said to be entirely occupied by these flocks, which are the descendants of little mobs which were overlooked by the musterers of half a century or more ago, and to-day they constitute a very real nuisance to the sheep farmers whose country borders on the wild territory which they have made their own. When the snows on the mountains drive the wild sheep down into the valleys they mingle with. the farmers’ flocks, for no fence is a safeguard against the wild rams, which are as agile as goats, and just as sure footed, being able to jump almost any obstacle. Messrs. Jackson Bros., who have been on their Te Arowhenua station, at the Head of the Waihopai Valley, for three years, have in that time killed over 600 wild sheep, and when the County Council party visited the station reram which the dogs had that morning succeeded in bringing in alive. A nasty, smelly brute it was, with great double-curved horns, and it was obviously of the Merino strain. The wool was hot so long as might be expected in the case of a sheep which had never known the shears. Mr. A. Jackson informed an Express reporter that a most noticeable feature about the wild sheep was that in the season every ewe had a lamb with her, and no one on the station had ever seen a ewe without one, so that there was always a 100 per cent, lambing. He added that on the station they never killed their own sheep for meat purposes but lived on the wild lambs, which were excellent eating. The dogs were fed on wild rams or ewes. Mr. F. E. Fairweather, of the neighbouring Stronvar station, stated that no less than 20,000 acres of iris property were entirely given over to the wild sheep.