II Oct., 1909.] Oais for Fattening Sheep and Lambs. 



639 



per year from off natural pasture. It is only when becoming too aged to 

 thrive on scanty feed that they can be sold to farmers at a price to pay 

 for oat feeding and finishing off finally on fodd'er crops. 



Sheep of the above breeding are too scarce for oat feeding to be prac- 

 tised widely. There are not nearly enough suitable ewes in the country 

 for raising the primest quality export lamb from. It will not be the worst 

 thing that can happen if lamb prices are so low as to make it more profit- 

 able for graziers to keep ewe lambs bred from merino ewes by longwool 

 rams in the country. These and further longwool crosses make the be^t 

 ewes for lamb-raising. It is the lamb from merino mothers, by longwool 

 rams, that, broadly speaking, produces most of our second and third 

 quality carcas.ses known as Australian quality. It has been the superior 

 skin on the five and six months old lambs of this cross (together with by- 

 products) that has induced exporters to gamble in this class of lamb. Now 

 everything points to young ten to sixteen week old quality lamb being 

 demanded, or else the old style lamb being taken at a ridiculously low 

 price. 



This ten to sixteen week old sappy lamb is never likelv to be long in 

 store, as it is always saleable. It is the enormous shipments of second 

 and third quality lamb carcasses (teg mutton, really) from Australia, 

 Argentine, and the North Island of New Zealand, that are really the cau.se 

 of the present trouble. It is ewes mainly of this breeding that suit farmers 

 best for oat feeding and fodder crop work, and they, in their turn, on 

 fodder crops, produce and rear the quality lamb that, at from ten to 

 sixteen weeks, has been sold time after time, not as Canterbury lamb 

 exactly, but as Canterbury quality. 



Oats are necessary feed in wet districts. The grass through the 

 winter months becomes very watery and innutritious^ and so do fodder 

 crops (especially turnips). This fact, together with sheep being always 

 cold through the fleece being continually damp, and, what is worse, for 

 months together being unable to find a dry place to camp, and having to 

 stand and move about on water-logged ground, renders it necessary to feed 

 oats. These conditions are the cause of most of the losses in in-lamb 

 ewes, and also of the present troubles that sheep are undergoing in Gipps- 

 land, and other heavy rainfall areas where the soil is of a retentive nature. 

 Oats fed to sheep in these districts two or three times a week, beginning 

 early in the wdnter, together with a little attention to better camping- 

 ground, will do more to counteract the evil results that come now through 

 innutritions feed and discomfort, than all the licks and drenches ever 

 introduced. 





