lo Dec, 1908.] Lambs for Export. — Causes of Rejects. 745 



LAMBS FOR EXPORT -CAUSES OF REJECTS. 



//. \V . Ham, Sheep Expert. 



Farmers in the lamb-raising industry are sometimes disappointed with 

 the average price paid aiid the number of rejects made by export buyers 

 each year. Some farmers, and buyers too, hold that these rejects 

 will do again for lamb raising. If the rejection is on account of want 

 of condition, owing to the season or bad feeding, it may be so, but if 

 carelessly bred in the first place then they can never possibly be good 

 lamb raisers. It is only too plain, however, that when our lambs are 

 at their primest and in greatest numbers there are not sufficient works or 

 cool storage to promptly deal with and hold them. Farmers are then 

 told that the lambs are not ready, and have to wait until their lambs are 

 past their Ijest in sappiness and quality. At the same time it has to Ije 

 admitted that with many farmers the fault lies with the breeding of the 

 lambs more than with the man rejecting them. 



Too many farmers breed second quality. Many more spoil their 

 lambs in the feeding. What they term " stocking up " is responsible for 

 much of this, sometimes in tricky seasons through no fault of the farmer 

 but mo.stly in good seasons when the temptation of luxuriant herbage is 

 great. Others give the animals no chance by forcing ewes and lambs 

 to clean out cultivation and fallow paddocks. This condition of things 

 will always exist to a greater or less extent ; all have tO' learn by experience, 

 and for those who believe in what they call " a little dealing" the danger 

 of being caught is always present. 



A matter, which up to the present many farmers have not given suffi- 

 cient thought to, is the secondary result obtained by mating certain breeds 

 and grades of ewe.; with rams of such a class that the result cannot be 

 satisfacLor\ . Thick-set sappy lambs st?nd knocking about in trucks and 

 yards with a mmimum of damage. Lambs when full of grass may look 

 <\vell in the paddcx:k, but often the dressed carcass shows very little 

 thickness through the fore-quarter. Lambs of this kind quickly lose 

 whatever little bloom they may have had when they left the paddock.=:. 

 Small merino ewes, especially if the fleece is marked by extreme density 

 and head covering, are best mated to the smaller boned, neater headed 'nd 

 bare pointed Leicesters. The latter should, however, be shapely and 

 well woolled, and not some of the thin locked and wasty fleeced sorts that 

 are all too common in the country. This useful breed is at present 

 undergoing a mild boom. 



Our best thriving breeds are the Downs and the best fleeced of these 

 are the Shropshires. But when joined with merino ewes, especially the 

 station culls that the farmer too often gets hold of, these lambs are onlv 

 second rate freezers at best, for merino ewes are not the best of milk 

 "ivers. Thev are also the worst of avooI cutters if held over, ps a lot 

 •of them have to be. 



The Shropshire is onlv n fair woolled breed, and these ewes are culled 

 for being either inferior' or light woolled. Xo rlas> of sheen is less 

 profitable than cull merinoes, for thev are culled for ill shapes as Avell 

 as for poor fleeces, and this means ill doers and b?.(l milkers. The lambs 

 cannot inherit anv useful wool-cutting qualities, and have only the sire 

 to give better constitutional shape, but this is counteracted h\ the dam 

 "being a poor doer, and consequently a poor milker. 



After all. the ewe has to carry the lamb and then rear it, and as regards 

 freezin"- lambs, the ewes have more to do with the success of them from 

 -start to finish than the ram. One starts it, the other finishes it. Good 



