348 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



lambs remain healthy and thus a new healthy stock can 

 be had even from a diseased flock. None of these dis- 

 eases originates spontaneously. There are no other 

 known hosts of these diseases than sheep, goats and per- 

 haps deer, so it is merely a question of starting with the 

 lambs, born free of all parasites, and keeping them in 

 health by putting them on fresh and uninfected pasture. 

 This insures freedom from these devitalizing pests. 



Feeding Sheep and Lambs on Pasture. There is often 

 good profit in feeding western lambs or natives on grass 

 in the spring, summer or fall. At this art some men 

 succeed admirably; others fail lamentably. The keynote 

 of success is to put the troughs in a small yard which 

 may be moved from time to time as the land gets foul. 

 When grain is put in the troughs the sheep must be ex- 

 cluded; afterward all must be brought in. It will not 

 do to depend on their intelligence or memory; pigs can 

 be called to feed and will all come, but this is not so as 

 to sheep or lambs, as a rule. The shepherd must see 

 that every one comes to its feed and that none goes 

 away until the feed is all consumed. Sheep are imitative 

 animals and if one leaves its feed others may follow, let- 

 ting those that remain have a chance to overeat. 



Feeding Sucking Lambs on Pasture. I have found 

 great profit from feeding young lambs corn on the grass 

 in April, May and June, as one would feed pigs. I would 

 fence a place so that the ewes could not get in or else 

 give the lambs access through creeps to a pasture from 

 which the ewes were excluded and feed them ear corn, 

 simply throwing it down on clean grass and letting them 

 shell it as pigs shell corn, This mingling of succulent 



