56 



the morning. If the lambs are sired by a vigorous ram, the ewes 

 treated right, not one lamb in ten will need your attention or help. 

 First lambs are often more trouble. But remember, ALWAYS milk 

 out the ewe after the lamb has filled up and do this not once but 

 daily for a week if she has surplus milk. Stagnant milk in a gorged 

 udder is surely fatal to the lamb. And Dorset ewes, if rightly fed 

 are great milkers. It is more trouble at first but when the lamb 

 does take it what a pleasure to see him swell and grow! 



If you have a large number of ewes to lamb in winter you 

 should provide a lot of pens, about four or six feet square. These 

 are best made of little panels three feet high and four feet long, 

 hinge two of them together at one end and then they shut up and 

 lay away until needed when they are opened out and hooked to the 



L 



Panels Opened To Make Pen. 



corner of the barn, enclosing a space four or six feet square. An- 

 other pen goes alongside and so on as there is need. Ewes with 

 twin lambs ought always to have one of these pens to keep her fam- 

 ily together until they know her. 



TRANSFERRING LAMBS 



Supposing you have a ewe that loses her young lamb, you 

 should at once remove its skin, taking it off as near whole as you 

 can, rub it dry on the flesh side and sprinkle it with salt, take a 

 twin lamb that needs more milk and slip it into this skin, put the 

 ewe and odd lamb in a pen together and the chances are mighty 

 good that she will adopt the stranger with joy. After a few days 

 the skin may be removed, though it is well to take it off a piece at a 

 time. 



If the ewe has a large lamb to die this plan may not work, but 

 to put her in a pen and confine her head between stanchions, which 

 may be two small round stakes driven into the earth and confined 

 at the top with a cord will be the surest and easiest plan. Turn the 

 lamb with her, she can not refuse to let it suck, after a time when 

 her milk has given it a new odor she will own it. This takes from 

 two days to a week. 



ALWAYS separate the ewes with lambs from the ewes ^yet 

 to lamb. You can't feed the same ration to each lot with success. 



