SHEEP WASHING IN VICTORIA

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 8, 23 February 1867, Page 3

SHEEP WASHING IN VICTORIA

As a matter of course, the Messrs. Cum;.l: i;/ all have good washing-places, and that at Mount Fyans South is the best I have seen in my travels, in the lirstplace the resenoir ia noble sheet of water, in (acta small lake, of such extent that the use of three spouts through the season, and tiny quantity of water Inside- i-*r Hushing mu the pens and yards and keeping every-thing about the place clean does not lower the level six inches. Being supplied partly from springs the water is hard, but the abundance of it compensates tor this. The dam is high enough to give plenty of fall, and is most substantial, with iron pipes laid through it. These arc litted with valves, and are respectively six and nine inches in diameter, the first being found quite too small for the supply of the spouts. At the end of the usual series of narrow yards is the catching-pen, an octagon holding some twenty sheep, with a shoot at one side, through-which they are let down into the soaking-pen. Tins is 11ft. din. long by 4ft. din. wide, and is about 4ft. in the deepest part. A few inches from the bottom is a grating, to allow the sand and heavy dirt, to pass throught and settle, and the bens contains about 1,400 gallons. There is a hoard across the centre to keep the lots of sheep separate, and at the opposite end to that into which they go first a battened incline leading up to the standing place from which three shoots take then under the three spouts as reqrircd. The battened way from the water has a division for each spout, so that if any shoe]) should he hurried through or imperfectly washed it can at. once be seen who is to blame. After the lirst temporary stoppage the sheep go into a very long battened yard in which they stand until they are thoroughly drained. If possible, they would be kept on battens until shorn : but the best way to avoid smut am! oven dust, is found to be to keep them in very small paddocks. The smut grass is all over the plains, and can scarcely be avoided this year, hut of course, if fed down closely, there can be no smut, and it does not seem to grow again in small paddocks that have been heavily stocked. There is no preparatory sprinkling here, as the sheep, when previously wetted, arc found to reduce the temperature of the water in ths soaking-pen too quickly, but a man gives any with black tips or otherwise requiring it a rub with a scrubbing-brush and soap while in the soakingpen. The boiler is alongside of the latter; in short, evrytiling is placed as conveniently as it well can be, and no time or labour is lost, in getting through with the work. Mr. George Gumming is now putting up a washing-place on the same plan but still more compact, as it .will be altogether covered by a roof twentysix feet by nine. The washing-place at Tcrinallnni is a most substantial affair, of cut stone and solid masonry, but it was built too soon, when long swims were the fashion, and has had to be altered in a temporary manner with wood to meet present requirements. That at Stony Point I did not see, as a want of sufficient water in the reservoir has presented the use of the spouts there this year. Thus the sheep have to he washed in the old style, after a preliminary soak in warm water and soap, and doubtless even this involuntary and partial ■ retunn to first principles will be equally uusatisfactorv to both the mind and pocket of the proprietor. The fleeces at Teriiialhuu are fully as heavy

if not heavier, than Mount Kyans. iticorroboration of which I may say that the fleeces of two lambs, and not very large ones cither, shorn while f was in the shed, appearing to be unusually heavy, they were weighed and proved to he respectively dlh. Boz. and - i!h. fioz.