626 Journal of the Department of Agriculture. 



KARAKUL SHEEP. 



By R. Owen Wahl, B.A. (Hons.), Lecturer in Zoology and 

 Entomology, Grootfontein School of Agriculture, Middelburg 

 (Cape), Officer in Charge of Karakul Sheep Investigations. 

 (In consultation with A. D. Thompson, Manager, Karakul 

 Stud Farm, South-West Protectorate.) 



(Contimied from page 527.) 



VI. 



Mating of Karakul Sheep : Grootfontein School 

 Investigations . 



Mention has been made of the practice of deciding upon the 

 mating of the ewe lamb at birth, and in connection with the very 

 vexing question of the mating of karakuls, it is felt that a short 

 account of the results of the investigations at the. Grootfontein School 

 of Agriculture may be of assistance to breeders. Some of the readers 

 of this article will have purchased pure-bred ewes at the recent stad 

 sale at Grootfontein, and will in many cases have some of the same 

 ewes with which the investigations were begun. 



The first lambing season, of the then recently acquired pure-bred 

 karakuls, at Grootfontein, was a great disappointment. We had seen 

 very beautiful skins and expected the lambs to resemble them, but as 

 lamb after lamb was born dull of coat, fuzzy, or ragged, or a mass 

 of corkscrews, this was difficult to believe. Practically all the ewes 

 were put to one ram (No. 10/11, and named " MacPherson "), and 

 many of the lambs were "B " type (see Plate 11). and most of the 

 rest had a great amount of corkscrew in their pelts, giving them a 

 poor lustre and very ragged appearance (see Plate 12). A few 

 lambs from another of the original stud rams at Grootfontein, 

 namely, "Edward" (No. 68/68) (see Plate 1), were rather lacking 

 in the development of the curl, but were not ragged and had good 

 lustre (see Plate 13). This decided us to use "Edward" 

 extensively in 1917. The result of the 1916 lambing was: First 

 class, 5, of which 4 were of the border line between classes 1 and 2 

 and would have been classed in second in 1917: second class, 18. 

 of which 12 would have been in third in 1917; third class, 42, of 

 which 11 would have been in fourth in 1917; and fourth class, 5. 



Information as to the lines along which to work was not forth- 

 coming from the Germans for the very good reason, as their records show, 

 that they had no definite system of mating, and tliat, while numerous 

 registers of various kinds were provided, none of them were kept 

 accurately. (Even their family registers are very inaccurate.) The 

 greatest problem, of course, was the improvement of the curl of the 

 pelts and how to set about this by mating adult sheep about which 

 nothing was known, except that woolliness was undesirable and crimp 

 was very desirable, was the cause of much thinking. A detailed 



