GOATS ON THE RANGE. 163 



Other men keep them in pens, where the top rail is 

 just high enough to allow the doe to jump over while 

 the kid cannot. This allows the doe to go back and 

 forth at will, and is of course much less trouble for the 

 herder than staking the kids out. 



It is generally conceded, however, that the men who 

 use the staking system raise a much higher percentage 

 of kids than those who use the pen method. 



There is nothing more beautiful than a thousand 

 little Angora kids, lying like a snow bank on the sunny 

 side of an enclosure. With their beautiful silky, curly 

 hair and long pendulous ears they are about the sweetest, 

 cleanest things imaginable. 



Common Goats Breed Best. Like sheep, however, the 

 higher the grade the less number of twins and triplets. 

 Take a band of common Mexican does and it is no un- 

 common thing to raise 150 or more kids to every 100 

 does. But when you begin to improve the goats the 

 does seem to lose the ability to bring forth more than 

 one kid at a time, and like sheep the losses from still- 

 born young and other causes during pregnancy is much 

 greater in the high-bred than in the scrub goats. 



Shearing and Dipping. The Angoras are sheared gen- 

 erally once a year, as with the sheep much depending 

 on the range and the weather. Goats are not subject 

 to scab but the best and most successful goatmen dip 

 their animals each spring to clean out the lice, ticks and 

 other vermin that infest them. 



