FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 375 



at the begnning it can never regain what is lost or gain in weight at 

 as low cost as it can if it had been kept growing from the beginning. 

 The reason is that the character and power of the nutritive mechin- 

 ery depends to a very large extent on the way it has been exercised 

 from the beginning. For the first three weeks, of course, the lamb 

 is dependent wholly on the milk of the ewe and care of the lamb must 

 be through the ewe. For two or three days the ewe should not be 

 fed too highly. If she has been fed grain in slight excess over ordin- 

 ary ration for three weeks before lambing to stimulate milk secretion, 

 she may get milk fever if fed too highly just at lambing time, as the 

 lamb may not take all she has to give. Lambs suck very frequently, 

 however, about twenty times a day and readily adjust themselves to 

 the appropriation of a liberal supply of milk, and their spindley frames 

 fill and grow rapidly at all points. The main thing is to avoid disor- 

 dering changes of food, which may affect the milk and induce either 

 diarrhoea or constipation in the lamb. It is a common thing to see 

 newly lambed ewes with left over or untasted food before them. It 

 should be remembered that the first condition to healthy nutrition 

 is appetite and if the ewe refuses food it is a good sign that she does 

 not need it. Excess of soft food, such as roots, induces a fiaccid con- 

 dition in the ewe and thinness of milk, though some increase of suc- 

 culent food increases the flow of milk after lambing. The food should 

 increase in quantity, but not deteriorate in quality after lambing. 



The important feature of lamb raising is the securing of an early 

 adjustment of the organism to concentrated foods, for it is on food of 

 this kind that rapid growth is secured. The practical value of early 

 accustoming lambs to concentrated foods is that though the lamb, for 

 example, after going on grass, may not be fed on concentrated foods 

 steadily its organism can be counted upon to use such foods at any 

 later time, for example, after weaning, with profit and without injury. 

 This is a matter of more than common prudence and wisdom; it is a 

 necessity. Unlike cows, sheep are exclusively meat animals. They 

 have been nurtured and cultured with a view to the highest carcass 

 development, and it is but fair to assume that selection to this end 

 means, in this as in any other case, a sinking or subordination of 

 some other functions. In other words, sheep not being selected gen- 

 erally for their milking qualities, the moderate character of milk sup- 

 ply must be met by hand supplementary feeding of the lambs on other 

 foods. 



Though grass and ewe's milk seem to constitute the cheapest 

 possible ration for lambs for a given amount of gain, and a perfect ra- 

 tion from the standpoint of health and thrift, the modern view is not 

 that it is an advantage to have lambs come when the grass comes, 

 even for butcher's purposes. Lambs that drop in the pens in March 

 have a hardy constitution and they get the right kind of a start to 

 make fast growers by the side-feeding of grains and other foods. 

 Lambs on the other hand that come on the grass, particularly some 

 time after spring has set in, are not as vigorous as earlier lambs and 

 do not attain rugged strength before the poor feeding and exposure 



