Death of Breeding Ewes.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 101, 12 September 1901, Page 3

Death of Breeding Ewes.

Says the Weekly Press in i<p agrioultural columns:—A correspondent writing from Wairaafce, S ath Canterbury, says:—" I would like to bring und«r your notice the fact that a number of ewes are dying in this distriot for some unexplained cause. They are always ewes near lambing, and in most instances would have la-abed twins,. When cut open the liver presents the appearance of being boiled and cuts in the same way—crumbly and dry. Before death the animals stand or lie round in a dazed way. One small farmer lost 12 out of 70, and another 9 out of 36. If you oould have the cause of death diagnosed and.the remedy, if any, mentioned, it would confer a great boon on the farmers in this locality." We have had this ctmplaint of the loss of breeding ewes brought before us every spring for the last three or four years, and it seems that we are likely to hear of it so long as sheep owners do not provide proper, feed for their breeding ewes in the last month before lambing. The lambing haa been put forward year by year in order to get the lambs away to the factory as soon as possible in the summer, and the ewes have to pass through the most critical time, that" is the last.few weeks before lambing, when thurait not a vestige of green feed thatos necessary to keep them healthy, unless artificial feed, jsuoh as oats or Cape' barley,. ia provided. Itf addition to the little picking* they can find in almost bare-paddocks ttiey &*t recently Wen V lot, of dry?tooa, : cna%; sojne;--

food, their systems get practically clogged up. It will generally be found that the first ewes to die are those with a good deal of inside fat [and carrying twin lambs,'frequently the best ewes in the flock. There is but the one practical remedy, and that is to give the ewes a , change on to the kind of food they require, and many good sheepfarmers always see that this is provided, and lost of ewes from the cause pur correspondent mention* never ooours with them. After the dry winter we had a few years ago, and when paddocks were very bare in the spring, losses of breeding ewes were heavy in parts of Canterbury, and this season, on account of {he severe winter and backwardness of the spring, there are numerous complaints of similar loss. It is, therefore, no new thing, though the Waimate district seems to have suffered more severely this year than other parts. We cannot urge too strongly the necessity of making better provision for feeding breeding ewes iu the spring, no matter what kind of season is to be expected. It is also a question now that our fat lambs aie not requirnd quite so eariy for export, seeing that the Australian lambs corns in before ours, whether tho lambing might not, with advantage, be put back a few weeks, and the ewes wou'd inordinary aeagou3 have a chance to get a littie new grass before lambing. A good many farmers in Canterbury have, during tho past year or two, adopted this policy.