MANAGEMENT OF LAMBS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 1736, 22 January 1913, Page 3

MANAGEMENT OF LAMBS

Tim e fieri uf castration en liunl.i.s is ; ii-iint tin;t- ha-s r<.-ni«lined long i ll j u:.- ; and the opportunity has lioen. J taken on some ot tin 1 . south i Wales Statu Fa.nii« to make it :i j subject for a practical t-e.sl. It in often argued, especially :iaionjj; the •brooders of early lambs, that owing to the severity of tiie operation /.nd the consequent check which the young lamb receives, those intended for early sale should not bo castrated or treated with tne knile. lhe following jxirtienlars arc noted trow tho managers' report:—"At AYagga tho wether lambs showed at the first weighing on an average ail advantage of 4lb a,s compared witli the ewe lambs. This advantage was not only maintained, but increased, as i« shown at the final weighing, in. which case the average had been increased to 91b. . At Cowra the averages taken at the first weighing disclose no ni-ater-ial difference between the weights ol the sexes. The final weighings, however, show the wether lambs to averago 4!b more than the <",ve lambs. Results fix)in Bathurst favour neither sex throughout the whole period of observation ; whilo at Glen limes tho wethers hardly retained the slight load which they bad at fiiwr. From fclirse results it might- wifely be ded.iccd that the extra pain and loss of blood involved in castration has little or no effect on the subsequent development of tho wether as compared with the ewe lambs ; provided, of course, that the ram lambs are operated on at about the age of. one month, as in. {this case."