DRY EWES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1939, Page 3

DRY EWES

INTERESTING CAUSATIVE THEORY. The lambing percentage on many farms in New Zealand this season may be affected more by the absence of single lambs than by the scarcity of doubles. That, at all events, is the opinion expressed by an experienced breeder of all classes of stock. He instanced a case that had come under his notice which suggested an interesting theory «as to a cause of barrenness. In one flock most of the ewes had satisfactory lambing, an exception being one particular lot. The ewes were treated exactly alike, except that in the lot with the pool- lambing they had been flushed when mated on good clover, i

This observer said it was well understood years ago that mares would not hold if mated when grazed on luxuriant clover. He had discovered this in his own horse breeding, and what held good with one class of stock might easily apply to another. Whilst the value of flushing feed at mating time is universally recognised, there has never been much opinion expressed as to the character of the feed. Wallace, a well-known English authority of 50 years ago, in his book, “Farm Live Stock of Great Britain,” mentions what is well known —that barrenness in stock may be induced by over-feed-ing in the case of either sex, which loads the reproductive organs with fat. Some foods, he says, induce this uncertainty more than others. Foods for breeders should be particularly rich in phosphates, and should have more albuminoids to fat formers than in the case of fattening animals. Very fat animals do not come very often in season. Too low condition and constitutional weakness are other causes. The value of this authority’s opinion, in the light of today’s farm practices, is the value he attaches to foods particularly rich in phosphates.