SAVE YOUR HOGGETS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 315, 31 August 1932, Page 2

SAVE YOUR HOGGETS

f SUPPLEMENTARY FOOD SWEDES FOR WINTERING SUIT HOGGETS WELL. WATCHFULNESS ADVISABLE. In the course of a series of lectures to sheepbreeders at Massey College, Mr. Averill Hastings has some interesting advice to give on the rearing and care of hoggets. . He considers the percentage of loss in New Zealand is appalling. A large number, he says, are lost in a wet season after weaning by putting them on to short grass that has grown as quickly as mushrooms. They start a bad scour, rapidly lose condition, hecoming a fit host for worms. This infectation either ends in death or a serious undermining of the constitution. It is far better, in this sort of season to put them on to rough feed. As regards wintering, where possible supplementary feed should be grown. Where not possible, a good ^lan is to topdress the paddocks they are going to run on. By using other paddocks the following year, the chances of worm infection will be lessened. Topdressing, however, cannot take the place of supplementary feed. The latter sweetens the land and to a large extent frees it from parasites. Topdressed paddocks on the other hand, owing to increased carrying capacity, would more than likely become more infected. For wintering on turnips, swedes are better than the soft varieties. The hoggets, to start with, should not be more than about five days on the first break and then they should have, say, two more quick shifts. These breaks should consequently be small ones. Finish the breaks off with older sheep — thousands of hoggets have been seriously put back by being too long on the first break.

Avoid Hurry. By this quick shifting at the start your hoggets will be well broken in to eating the bulbs and should be improving. You can now enlarge the breaks, but until the hoggets are getting into pretty good buckle don't ask them to eat below the ground. The practice of putting the weak hoggets ahsad of the others is not a good one, without there are so few of them as to make no appreciable difference in the bulk of the tops. It deprives the main lot of a very valuable ehangra of

feed. If you intend to give a run off on to grass, dont do so until you have got your hoggets broken in; if you do some of them will never take to the bulbs. Do not put weak hoggets on to turnips; if they have the strength to eat them, they probably will not be able to digest them. Salt, when taken to, will be consumed in fairly large quantities. -I mix bone flour with it. Watch the sheep closely, and if some appear not to he doing, draft them out. Toward the end of July if you happen to see old hoggets going back and tucked up, look at their mouths — you will probably find loose or lost teeth. Waikato Results. For a number of years I had the wintering of 25,000 hoggets annually in the Waikato. They were split into two mobs. It was, of course, not feasible to give them a run off. Wet and fine they were on the turnips from start to finish. The mobs on the flats were given hay, but the other lot on the hills had jaone. They did equally as well. Toward the middle of July, they got into such condition that the only anxiety was the fear of a smoth'er. Of late years, owing to dry seasons, with the ravages of the diamond backed moth I have gone in for Chou Moellier in place of turnips. It is an excellent feed for hoggets . By not leaving them on too long several feedoff in breaks, the same as turnips, letings can be obtained, or it can be fed ting them eat the stalks down to the ground. They do wonderfully well on tlrem. An advantage over turnips is that no so much soiled food is consumed. By feeding off the stalks, one gets as much out of it as an ordinary crop of turnips. It also leaves the ground clear for ploughing. You can grow several crops on the same ground if not infested with club root. At present I am feeding off the third crop in succession and it is the best Nothing like the Plough. of the lot.

Barley, green oats, and western wohls or any young grass are great assets for weak sheep. On well drained land with soil of a free nature it is a good plan .when sowing autumn grass to mix with it some soft turnip seed. Sow broadcast with manure and chain harrow. When grass is well established hoggets will not only do well but will vastly improve the pasture. We practised this in the Waikato, hoggets going off the swedes on to it. If getting too late in the autumn for soft turnips, mustard was substituted. I never drench as I have long ago come to the conclusion that no drench will destroy parasites in the fourth stomach. Th'e only way to combat the worm is by keeping the animal's strength up with nourishing feed. Topdressing, for rearing hoggets can never take the place of the plough. _ The very serious loss of hogget life can he greatly diminished by making the fullest use of one's power of observation. Keep a close personal watch on your hoggets — dont' trust to reports from other people.