THE SHEEP. 



males than females. Yet, perhaps, it may be pre- 

 mature to attempt to deduce any law from experi- 

 ments which have not yet been sufficiently 

 extended. The writer of this has uniformly 

 observed, that in every favourable season, when 

 his stock was in high condition, he had a much 

 larger number of female lambs than of males ; 

 and in one 'of the most favourable seasons that 

 has occurred during his own personal experience, 

 the female lambs exceeded the males to the num- 

 ber of ninety, in a flock of six hundred ewes. 

 The ewes had no artificial food at any season of 

 the year ; they lived entirely on the natural grasses 

 of our mountain pastures. They got bog and lea 

 hay in snow storms, but nothing else. 



GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 



The management of sheep must be varied 

 according to the nature and character of the 

 breed, the soil and climate, character of the pas- 

 tures, natural or artificial, the position of the farm 

 in reference to markets, and whether all the sheep 

 upon the farm can be prepared for the butcher, or 

 must all be sold lean, as is the case with those 

 farmers whose flocks subsist entirely on the 

 natural grasses of our mountain pastures ; and 

 whether early lambs would be profitable or other- 

 wise. These and many other circumstances must 

 regulate the proper time for admitting the rams 

 to the ewes, changing the lambing-season, and 

 the proper times for washing, shearing, dipping, 

 smearing, &c. Different names are applied 

 to sheep at different periods of their age. A 

 young sheep remains a lamb from birth till the 

 first smearing-time. From this till the first clipp- 

 ing it is called a hog. From the first to the second 

 clipping it is termed zgimmer. It is now called 

 a young ewe, till it bears its first lamb. When 

 male sheep are cut, they are denominated wedders; 

 and, according to their age, are called wedder- 

 hogs, &c. At three years old, the wedder is in 

 its prime for mutton. 



Lambing. 



The period at which sheep begin to breed is in 

 the autumn of the second year after birth, when 

 both rams and ewes are at their maturity. In the 

 British Islands, the company of the ram is largely 

 permitted at the beginning of October. The ewe 

 goes with young about 1 52 days ; consequently 

 the lambing-season is at the beginning of March. 

 It is of high importance that sheep, during gesta- 

 tion, should be managed with peculiar gentleness 

 and care, the rash use of the dog being attended 

 with the most pernicious consequences. The ewes 

 should be well but not overfed, as the ewes being 

 in too high condition greatly increases the risk in 

 lambing. Though parturition, being a natural 

 process, cannot be regarded as a disease, still, in 

 the sheep, as well as in many of our domestic 

 animals, it is attended with some risk ; and in 

 certain states of the atmosphere, with ewes in too 

 high condition, there is often considerable loss 

 from inflammation. 



'As the period of parturition approaches,' 

 observes an intelligent writer in the Penny Cydo- 

 padia, ' the attention of the shepherd should in- 

 crease. There should be no dogging then, but the 

 ewes should be driven to some sheltered inclosure, 

 and there left as much as possible undisturbed. 



'The period of lambing having actually com- 

 menced, the shepherd must be on the alert, yet 

 not unnecessarily worrying or disturbing the ewes. 

 The process of nature should be permitted quietly 

 to take its course, unless the sufferings of the 

 mother are unusually great, or the progress of the 

 labour has been arrested during several hours, or 

 until eighteen or twenty hours have elapsed since 

 the labour commenced. His own experience, or 

 the tuition of his elders, will teach him the course 

 which he must pursue. 



' If any of the newly dropped lambs are weak, 

 or scarcely able to stand, he must give them a 

 little of the milk which at these times he should 

 always carry about him, or he must place them in 

 some sheltered warm place ; in the course of a 

 little while, the young one will probably be able 

 to join its dam. The lambing field often presents 

 at this period a strange spectacle. Some of the 

 younger ewes, in the pain, and confusion, and 

 fright of their first parturition, abandon their 

 lambs. Many of them, when the udder begins 

 to fill, will search out their offspring with unerring 

 precision ; others will search in vain for it in 

 every part of the field with incessant and piteous 

 bleating ; others, again, will hang over their dead 

 offspring, from which nothing can separate them ; 

 while a few, strangely forgetting that they are 

 mothers, will graze unconcernedly with the rest of 

 the flock. 



' The shepherd will often have not a little to do 

 in order to reconcile some of the mothers to their 

 twin offspring. The ewe will occasionally refuse 

 to acknowledge one of the lambs. The shepherd 

 will have to reconcile the little one to its unnatural 

 parent, or to find a better mother for it. If the 

 mothers obstinately refuse to do their duty, they 

 must be folded by themselves until they are better 

 disposed ; and, on the other hand, if the little one 

 is weak and perverse, it must be repeatedly forced 

 to swallow a portion of her milk, until it acknow- 

 ledges the food which nature designed for its 

 sustenance.' 



Male lambs are cut nine or ten days after birth. 

 Weaning, or removal from the mother, takes place 

 from three to four months after birth, according 

 to circumstances. In weaning, the ewes and 

 lambs must be separated so far that they will not 

 hear the bleatings of each other. The lambs are 

 at first put on the tenderest herbage that can be 

 selected. Some ewes may have so much milk, 

 that the udders will swell when deprived of the 

 lambs, and this requires to be attended to by the 

 shepherd at this trying season of his labours. 



Food Tending Shelter. 



The best kind of food for sheep is nutritious 

 grassy pasture, growing on a dry and firm soiL 

 The sheep is most assiduous in picking up food, 

 and will range over a great space in quest of the 

 herbage which it is fond of. In the Highlands of 

 Scotland and in Australia, where the herbage is 

 scanty, the sheep-farm requires to be very large : 

 twelve miles in length and breadth is no unusual 

 size of a Highland sheep-farm. In countries 

 liable to be covered with snow in winter, hay 

 must be preserved for the subsistence of the 



; flocks when they cannot get their ordinary food. 

 Natural meadow-hay and turnips are used in Scpt- 



i land for winter keep when ordinary resources fail ; 



i and the employment of these, in the case of heavy 



