452 Transactions of the 



There is one other bad purchase that may be made and which gener- 

 ally offers during a "bad sheep year" — that is, a season when feed has 

 been scant and sheep are thin and weak. The Autumn of such a year 

 seldom passes without chances offering to buy a band of ewes at "a dead 

 bargain." Don't. It is odds that by the time lambing is over, the pur- 

 chase will be as dead as the bargain was. At all events it is nearly in- 

 evitable that the bargain will have proved a bad one; and will he perhaps 

 at its worst if the purchaser thinks he have learned the lesson that 

 " sheep don't pay." While carrying their lambs, ewes ought to have at 

 least decently good feed, and to be in good strength at lambing time — of 

 all times in the year. Without this, no amount of care will insure that 

 full increase of lambs that I have said lies at the foundation of real 

 success. 



There is one other point in buying a band of ewes supposed to be with 

 lamb. The lambs ought all to come within a period of six weeks. To 

 insure this, the ewe flock ought to have been served by a sufficient num- 

 ber of bucks. This number may vary according to the sort of range 

 and quality of feed the flock was on when the bucks were turned in. In 

 general, and on good feed, there ought to have been at least. one buck 

 to every fifty ewes, and if yearling bucks were used, it is safer to have 

 had a greater number. Some breeders pamper their bucks up well be- 

 fore turning them in, feed grain for awhile, etc. Where this has been 

 done, bucks may do double and treble duty. By proper inquiry, a pur- 

 chaser can find out a good deal about the past management of the band 

 he proposes to purchase, and had better find out all that he can. 



1 said that due increase of lambs is to be insured only by proper care 

 bestowed during lambing time. Sheep will live and thrive and do well 

 in most parts of California with little care during nearly eleven months 

 of the year. I speak now of small bands — farmers' bands. On a sheep 

 ranch the work, such as it is, goes on with them the year round. But 

 there is a period of six weeks to two months, during which some real 

 work must be given to sheep even by small growers, as the price of real 

 success with them. This is the lambing season. With some growers in 

 the southern part of California, this season is already past; lambs may 

 come there with advantage, on suitable range, as early as November; on 

 more ranges, it is not found safe to have them come before December. 

 In the central part of California, it is better to have them come in Jan- 

 uary and February; nor is it well to have them come in any part of the 

 State that is really adapted to sheep raising, later than March; for as 

 the feed gets dry towards the first of June, the ewe's milk begins to fail; 

 the lamb's growth is thereby stunted; it becomes a "runt;" so that it 

 has passed into a saj'ing with sheep men that " one January lamb is 

 worth two March lambs." Besides this the lambs' fleeces are to be shorn 

 as early as possible in the following Autumn — and this ought not to be 

 later than the middle of September; it is decidedly better for the well- 

 being of the lambs that shearing should be done before the end of 

 August; they acquire thus a serviceable coat against cold, raw weather, 

 when, also, the feed is at its poorest. But March lambs give but a light 

 shearing in September (six months old), and the staple is so short that 

 it fetches a low price per pound. The following Spring, again, the year- 

 lings are shorn with only a six months' fleece — light of weight, short 

 of staple, low in price. In short, starting with late lambs, the business 

 is prosecuted with disadvantageous aspects, all through. Starting with 

 reasonably early lambs, on the other hand, which come in January, Feb- 

 ruary, all these aspects are reversed. Discussion of the proper methods 



