The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1916. MORTALITY IN LAMBS

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 204, 4 October 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1916. MORTALITY IN LAMBS

(With which is incorporated The Tal hape Post and Waimarino News.)

In connection with the seemingly unaccountable mortality of young lambs, which our Te Kapua correspondent has again drawn attention to, it may be restated that in 1913 the Government veterinary officers visited this district, and made exhaustive investigations. That the trouble is a real one is fully proved from the Departmental report which followed, and the reasonings of our correspondent are quite on the lines of what the Departmental officers found to be the case. This lamb trouble is again drawn attention to in the issue of the Journal of Agriculture, a publication that no farmer, poultryman or beekeeper should fail to subscribe to. Mn G. J. Reakes, Director of the Live Stock Division,: says, that, while New Zealand is remarkably free from sheep diseases of a contagious nature, sheepowners still have to contend with trouble in the shape of sickness and mortality duo to other causes. Most of this is the result of sheep and lambs living under conditions that are really too good for their physical well-being, Nature having so fashioned the system of the sheep as to render it an animal capable of remaining strong and health}* under adverse climatic and feeding conditions, such as are brought about by cold winters with, accompanying shortness of feed, necessitating free and constant movement in order to obtain the nourishment,necessary for the proper maintenance of health, Mr. Reakes goes on to state that this mortality is all a question of management. Farmers, he says, naturally keep sheep

for the purpose of making money out of them, and the most successful man is he who realises how far he can go in the direction of doing his ewes avcll without overstepping the danger-mark, and allowing them to pile on fat to too great an extent before lambing. It must be realised that a ewe too fat is weaker for lamb-raising than one in good condition. Dealing specialty with lambs, Mr Ecakes says, lamb mortality that occurs every season is chiefly a North Island complaint, and is purely the result of over-nutrition. It is almost invariably those single lambs in the highest and best condition that die. Dr Gilruth, writing on the same trouble in 1907, says, after lengthy investigation that usually the lamb, strong in build, fat in condition, generally a single lamb, and about a month old", is found dead. Death usually occurs suddenly—often while playing. From the observations of Dr Gilruth, Mr Eeakes, Director of the Live Stock Division in New Zealand, and also from the useful observations of such settlers as our Te Kapua correspondent, there is no doubt about, the cause of the mortality, and it seems quite clear that farmers have the power to prevent it. There are still many men who will persist in saying the cause is due'to dirty pasture, but we know of land that is carrying from four to six sheep all the year round where lamb mortality ig almost unknown, simply because the land is stocked to its full capacity. The tact seems that farmers hereabout, being over-anxious to have thicr sheep in best condition have added to the trouble by understocking. The whole subject is dealt with in Departmental publications, and we believe sheepowners would do well to write to the Secretary of the Department of 'Agriculture, Wellington, asking him to send a selection of Departmental bulletins bearing upon sheep-farming, which he will readily do altogether free of charge. These bulletins arc an epitome of the observations and investigations of such noted veterinarians as Dr Gilruth and Mr C. J. Ecakes, and they constitute a handbook which no sheepfarmer should be without. They should be written for by first mail, for they will probably be of some use to the most sceptical and haphazard sheepbreeder.