WOOL PRODUCTION

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 614, 16 March 1929, Page 27

WOOL PRODUCTION

RESEARCH IN UNITE,D STATES INTERESTING CONCLUSIONS

For many years the sheep and wool : industry has sought to improve the I methods of breeding and handling sheep to produce wool, lambs and mut- : ton. It cannot be said that a great measure of success has been achieved, i The problem is intricate, involving the | consideration of innumerable factors, i and it can only be solved by means of | long and intensive research. Such rei search work has not been undertaken in Australia, which, considering the i importance of the sheep and wool inI dustry, has been notoriously slow in initiating inquiries into this and other vital problems facing the pastoralist. The United States, however, being in the fortunate position of possessing almost unlimited money and facilities for the pursuit of research work, has given a lead, and, despite the fact that it cannot be said to be a great wool country, it has undertaken research into many sheep and wool problems. An outline of recent investigations of wool production by the United States Department of Agriculture has been issued by the Department of Markets, Canberra. It is claimed that as a result of this work the problem of

devising the best methods of sheepbreeding and handling for wool production has been solved to a large extent. The ingenious combination of research methods employed by the workers necessitated the tabulation and correlation of figures, amounting to approximately 1,000,000 separate determinations. Thoroughness of Investigation The results are based on three years of investigation, and on analyses of several thousand samples taken from approximately j.,500 fleeces. The euuipment used Included a specially designed wool-conditioning oven, gi case-extractor apparatus, and washing equipment, with a centrifugal drier to measure the importance of the factors to be studied. These factors included age of sheep, weights of fleece, moisture, grease, and dirt, length of staple, fineness of fibre, character of fleece, density of fleece, face covering, skin folds, body weight, and mutton conformation. The investigators then used advanced statistical methods and sorting and tabulating machinery for correlating the masses of figures. It Is claimed that the results of the computations, which were obtained in a carefully planned, methodical manner, give dependable, exact information on many debated points, supported in the past largely by individual opinion. One of the most important findings was the fact that with Rambouillet sheep “good mutton conformation may have some advantages, and substantially no disadvantages in efficient wool production.” This conclusion is significant in the breeding of Rambouillet sheep. Ewes which averaged “good” (about 85 per cent, perfection) in mutton condition as yearlings produced fleeces which averaged slightly the largest In staple. Wool Blindness and Age Extensive experiments showed also that “ewes free from heavy face covering, or wool-blindness, yielded heavier fleeces,” and that “no important advantages were found as a result of heavy covering of wool over the face of the ewes.” This topic has been widely discussed among sbeep bre iers and exhibitors. More wool on the face appears to mean less production from the entire animal. The explanation probably lies in the greater difficulty of finding feed on the range when the eyes are partly covered.

One of the most Important influences on wool production is the age of sheep. “As sheep became older,” the bulletin states, “the moisture in their fleecer had a very slight tendency to increase, the weight of grease in each fleece increased, the weight of dirt increased, the length of the staple became shorter, and the character of their fleeces had a slight tendency to become less choice.” The fleeces from three-year-old ewes averaged the neaviest weiLu-c. As the fineness of wool in fleeces increased there was a slight tendency toward decrease in weights, both scoured and unscoured, and in weight of moisture and dirt to each fleece. Improvement in the character of the fleeces was associated with longer staple, a little heavier weight of clean wool, a trifle less grease and dirt, and a slightly finer fibre.

A result of particular interest to breeders is that dealing with the influence of folds in the skin on the production and character of wool. Pronounced folds have been obtained in several breeds by selection and breeding, thereby increasing the surface of skin. The result of the Investigations showed that “freedom from folds was correlated with greater length of staple, a greater fineness of fibre, lighter unscoured fleece weights, a very slight reduction in clean-wool weights, considerably less grease and dirt, -and less density.”