ECZEMA OUTBREAK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1938, Page 3

ECZEMA OUTBREAK

LATENT EFFECTS STILL FELT.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, November 3

Latent effects of the outbreak of facial eczema which raged throughout the province earlier in the year, are still being felt by sheep-farmers. Lower lambing percentages and the likelihood of a somewhat inferior wool clip are at least to some extent traceable to the- epidemic and, although no new cases are known to the authorities, deaths are still occurring among sheep which were previously affected. Contrary to the fears of many farmers, the quality of the lambs born to ewes which were exposed to the epidemic has been surprisingly good, although the lambing season has proved later and longer than usual. Up to the present relatively few lambs have been, drafted in the Waikato, and many farmers will be required to carry heavy stocks of lambs well into the summer. Doubts are expressed in some quarters as to how they will fare later in the season.

No fresh, cases of facial eczema have been reported to the Department of Agriculture in Auckland, an officer stating that any animals which were now dying were those which had been affected by. the disease in, a varying degree when the epidemic was at its height. After seemingly making a recovery, many ewes had lost ground in the hard' winter, and failed to survice.