500 SHEEP 



abstracted from an interesting article by J. S. Dunnet,i on 

 " Australia's Popular Type of Merino," which is very suggestive 

 to American students : 



Leading flockmasters are agreed that the ram with a deep neck, connected 

 right from the jaw to the brisket, with one fairly deep cross-fold about halfway 

 along and a well-defined wrinkle at his breast, running up well in front of each 

 forearm, thus forming a collar, is the best. This style of neck is easily shorn. 

 It allows a growth of first-class wool, worth more per pound than that produced 

 on any other part of the body. Such a neck should be long and deep on the 

 underline, from brisket to jowl, and carried on a broad, strong, but short 

 neck on top, closing up the wool as much as possible from the horns to the 

 withers. Sheep of this class are mostly vigorous, and thrive well under hard 

 conditions, especially if free from body-folds and wrinkles. 



What is the argument in favor of neck-folds? It is that the greater the 

 surface area of the skin covered with wool the heavier the clip. It should be 

 closely watched, however, that the folds are not so close and deep as to cramp 

 the wool and obscure the light and air, as the weakness would produce in the 

 recesses a sweaty, fuzzy wool of a low type, which aims a blow at uniformity. 

 A defect in many rams is that unless the necessary care has been exercised 

 in breeding there is a tendency to hairiness on the neck, the thigh, and the 

 breech. The wool on the neck-folds is generally of a higher grade than on 

 the thigh or ham-folds, and therefore it is a better place to carry the extra 

 wool. It is also claimed that ewes from such heavily thighed rams are apt to 

 prove bad mothers, for their milk is short. 



The reason why the corrugated, wrinkly sheep was discarded was that, by 

 cultivating folds anywhere else on the body, excepting on the neck and behind 

 the elbow, the breeders found they were sacrificing too much evenness of 

 fleece for quality and losing far too much vigor. The best authorities are now 

 agreed that one good neck-fold and a collar, or at the most two neck-folds with 

 perhaps a wrinkle behind the elbow, are all that can be safely allowed. As the 

 tendency of the standard Merino wool is to become stronger from the neck 

 back to the breech this coarseness becomes greatly accentuated as the size and 

 closeness of these folds increase. 



For these reasons, as well as the tendency to weak constitution, excessive 

 folds and wrinkles now find very few champions in Australia. A good forearm 

 and a good thigh are generally associated with deep, heavy necks, but in no 

 case should the sheep be so big in the thigh as not to provide space for the 

 udder. It is remarkable that some sheep outgrow many of their wrinkles, 

 although some of them remain with them to the end of the chapter. 



The size of the American Merino naturally varies. Weights of 

 130 pounds or upward for the rams and about 100 pounds for 

 the ewes are acceptable to breeders. The finer specimens of rams 



'^Breeders' Gazette, January i8, 191 1. 



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