CHAPTER III. 



PREPARATIONS FOR AND ATTENTION DURING 

 LAMBING. 



HE lambing time is a most important period ; and in 

 proportion to the care and attention preparatory to 

 and during its progress, so will be the result. We 

 are not believers in good or bad luck. Weather and 

 peculiar circumstances may tend to a greater mortahty at one 

 season than another, and such matters are to some extent 

 beyond our control; but, making due allowance for such dis- 

 turbing elements, we repeat that it is a question of intelligent, 

 thoughtful management, as opposed to careless, ignorant, and 

 thoughtless treatment. Take the one question of food and 

 lodgings. During November, 1875, we had an unusual and 

 almost unprecedented fall of rain, and the sheeps' hacks were 

 seldom dry for long together. Now contrast the condition of 

 two flocks — the one hurdled on turnips, with the land trodden 

 into a thick puddle of mud, and the sheep allowed to gnaw 

 what they could, getting no dry meat, and lying always on wet 

 ground ; the other, also in the turnip field, but having only a 

 regular allowance of turnips, and taken each night into a 

 sheltered and well littered fold, where they are supplied with 

 plenty of straw. Is it a cause of surprise if, in the one case, 

 there are many dead and rotten lambs, while those that are 

 born alive are weakly, pot-bellied animals ; and, in the other, 

 we have healthy yellow lambs that go on and thrive well? 

 Nevertheless, we commonly hear the difference of results in the 

 two flocks ascribed to good or bad luck. 



Animals, in order to make a profitable return, must be treated 

 considerately. The master and man must both love the animals, 



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