EARLY TREATMENT OF LAMBS. 157 



When lambs are affected with diarrhoea a teaspoonful of 

 castor oil will remove the acidity which is the cause of the 

 disorder, and check the complaint. 



When lambs are two or three days old they are liable to a 

 rapidly fatal form of diarrhoea, known as the " scant." When 

 once this disease appears in a lambing pen it is difficult to 

 cope with it, and the loss may become serious. Instead of 

 attempting direct treatment, the best system is to make a new 

 pen at a distance from the old one, and to remove the ewes 

 and lambs to it. By this change of lair and of food the 

 disease is usually stopped. As the scant only attacks ex- 

 tremely young lambs, this practice entails less trouble than 

 might at first sight appear ; it is, in fact, only necessary in the 

 case of the newly-lambed portion of the flock and those 

 expected to lamb. The pen should at all times be kept healthy 

 by the use of plenty of litter, and the removal or burying of 

 all dead lambs or ewes, and all cleansings. This is too much 

 disregarded by shepherds, but it is one of those points which 

 a master may properly enforce. 



EARLY TREATMENT OF LAMBS. 



The treatment of very young lambs differs according to the 

 earliness or lateness of the yeaning time. When flocks lamb 

 down in March and April, and where the close folding system 

 gives way to the more natural plan of open grazing, the ewes 

 and lambs are first turned out on to pastures or seeds. In the 

 close folding districts of the chalk formation, where lambing 

 principally takes place during January and February, greater 

 care is requisite, and a more artificial system of management 

 is pursued. In this latter case ewes and lambs are turned out 

 upon turnips or swedes. During the first fortnight lambs sub- 

 sist entirely upon milk, but even before the lapse of that short 

 period they will be seen playing with the finest portions of the 

 hay and the turnip greens. When it is desired to bring out a 

 ot of ram lambs or early wethers at eight months old, no time 



