BREEDING QUALITIES 129 



The skin of the typical Hampshire is pink, but there is a strong 

 tendency toward very dark or bluish skins. Horns or evidence of 

 their presence amount to a disqualification (Fig. 83). 



Properties. Rate of Growth. Hampshires are famous for their 

 size, rapid rate of growth, early maturity, and ability to thrive on 

 forage crops between hurdles. When liberally fed they are without 

 an equal in rapid rate of growth. In England, where they are kept 

 between hurdles a great part of the time, the lambs often make 

 more than a pound of gain per day through periods of one hundred 

 days or more. They attain what seem like preposterous weights 

 before they are a year old. Eight- and nine-month lambs can be 

 made to weigh two hundred pounds and even more. As a pure-bred 



FIG. 83 First-prize pen often Hampshire ram lambs, Salisbury Fair, England, July, 1909. 

 Note the size and maturity of these lambs, all born after Jan. 1, 1909. 



sheep they undoubtedly belong in a system where- liberal feeding is 

 practiced ; otherwise their most valuable properties cannot function. 

 The ewes winter well on roughage. 



In quality of mutton the Hampshire shows its Southdown in- 

 heritance; the lean meat is fine-grained and firm and as large 

 mutton it has no superior. 



Breeding Qualities. Hampshire ewes are prolific, strong in 

 maternal instinct, and good milkers. The lambing record of thirty- 

 seven English flocks was kept by the English Society in 1903; 

 15,482 ewes raised 18,462 lambs or 119.17 per cent. Numbers con- 

 sidered, this speaks well for the prolificacy and hardiness of the 

 breed. At birth the lambs are large, weighing around ten pounds, 

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