

CHAPTER XVII. 



SUMMER MANAGEMENT -CONTINUED, 



DRAFTING AND SELECTION REGISTRATION MARKING AND 



NUMBERING STORMS AFTER SHEARING SUN - SCALD 



TICKS SHORTENING HORNS MAGGOTS CONFINING RAMS 



TRAINING RAMS FENCES SALT TAR, SULPHUR, 



ALUM, &C. WATER IN PASTURES SHADE IN PASTURES 

 HOUSING SHEEP IN SUMMER PAMPERING. 



DRAFTING AND SELECTION. To secure constant improve- 

 ment in a stock of sheep, as well as to remove all animals 

 from it which have individual peculiarities which render 

 them comparatively unprofitable, or troublesome, it is 

 necessary annually to "draft" the flock, as it is termed, that 

 is, exclude from it all animals which fall below a certain 

 standard of excellence. The leading defects to be had in 

 view in drafting are, first, the general ones of a want of the 

 requisite degree of perfection in the form and fleece, judged 

 by the existing standard of the flock. What satisfies the 

 owner, in these respects, in one generation of sheep, ought 

 not to in the next. However perfect the flock, there ought 

 to be some degree of improvement visible in the get of every 

 new stock ram, or that ram ought at once to give place to 

 another. And as each year brings more perfect younger 

 animals into breeding, the most defective old ones should be 

 excluded, or drafted, to make place for them. If, however, 

 the get of a new stock ram do not meet expectation or if 

 it is found that they bring some new prominent fault into the 

 flock, or, what is still worse, restore an old one partly bred 

 out and toward which a predisposition yet lingers in the 

 flock or if they present a type not uniform with the 

 established type of the flock, even though, in itself, it may 

 be an equally good one it would be better to draft this 

 entire get of lambs, and allow the year of their birth to be a 

 stationary one in the progress of the flock. 



