92 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Take the favorite lamb iind put it down at the mother's head. She rec- 

 •ognizes it and is very fond of it. Pass it back to the back corner, where 

 we tie it with about eighteen inclies of very light rope to a small mal- 

 leable iron swivel attached to the rear corner post by a common fence 

 staple. He can get his dinner all right, but cannot get to the mother's 

 head. Kow, the mother knows her lamb is there, although she can 

 neither see nor smell him. Now drop the other lamb that she does not 

 own down by its mate. She is not aware which lamb approaches. It 

 might be considered a little mean, but we just fool her a little and the 

 ruse works completely. We leave this rejected lamb loose, and through 

 the places each side of the stanchion he will naturally run in and out 

 around under the sheep's nose. Her mother's instinct soon exerts itself. 

 She soon takes to the little fellow, and were you to keep the favorite 

 lamb tied too long, you would find the conditions reversed and she 

 would not be ready to own him. When the conditions are just right 

 we open the stanchion and leave her loose with the lambs a day or 

 two. Then she is ready to be placed in the apartment where the ewes 

 with their lambs are kept apart from the main flock, so that they can 

 receive extra attention and abundance of feed, and where the lambs will 

 not be so liable to stray or receive injury. 



When the little lambs are fairly started we provide a very tempting 

 grain ration for them, where they can run to it at will and where the 

 old sheep cannot get at it. Here we keep a variety of feeds. We use 

 oats, bran, middlings, corn meal, or mixtures, as they seem to like them 

 best. It is wonderful how soon the little lambs will take to some kind 

 of grain food and how they will grow and thrive on it. 



To illustrate this, on Monday last I went to the sheep pen and caught 

 and weighed three lambs. They were not all the largest, but of different 

 ages, to determine what gain they were making per day. One 20 days 

 old weighed 22 pounds; one 21 days old weighed 23 pounds, and one 

 nine days old weighed 15 pounds. Now understand this is no guess 

 or estimate. The weights were carefully taken, the dates carefully 

 kept and honest calculations made. Neither do we consider this a phe- 

 nomenal growth. It is safe to say that when the flock is managed as 

 I have suggested, the lambs will gain a pound per day, or will at least 

 weigh as many pounds as they are days old. 



We usually dress our earliest lambs at Easter time, realizing from 

 16c to 20c per pound, making them bring from |4 to $6.50 per head. 



By the use of the stanchion and pen we have described, we graft other 

 lambs from ewes having twins or triplets on to those ewes from which 

 we killed Easter lambs with perfect success. When this is done, the 

 ewes often become very vicious and will persistently fight the ap- 

 proaches of the young stranger. When this is the case, bore a hole in 

 each stanchion, close to and below the swell of the sheep's shoulders, 

 ana cut two notches in the board at a corresponding height behind 

 her, so that two small sticks, like rake handles for instance, can be 

 thrust through the holes and drawn up close under the swell of the 

 body against the sheep and dropped into these notches behind her. In 

 this way she will be compelled to stand still and cannot lie down on 

 the lamb, as she will try to do. Soon she will cease her resistance and 

 l3ecome as fond of the young lamb as if she had been its real mother. 

 Vre have found by experience that they make excellent step-mothers. 



