MEAT PRODUCTION 405 



To raise winter lambs, or as they are sometimes called, 

 milk lambs, successfully, the following requisites must be 

 present, viz: (i) Ewes that will drop lambs at the proper 

 season; (2) quarters sufficiently protected to shield the 

 young lambs from harmful exposure; (3) food suitable in 

 kind and ample in quantity and (4) facilities for marketing 

 with dispatch and on easy call. If any of these are 

 lacking, the success of the work will be proportionately 

 increased. 



The breeds at present in this country which have 

 the habit of dropping lambs in the late autumn or early 

 winter are the Dorset and the Tunis and high grades of 

 these. If lambs of one or the other of these breeds are 

 crossed upon common females of breeding more or less 

 mixed, the habit of producing lambs at the desired season 

 may be engrafted on the progeny in a limited number 

 of generations. The change may be facilitated by judicious 

 feeding and selection. Experiments conducted by the 

 author at the Minnesota station, showed that in two gen- 

 erations of such breeding, the change was- secured in a 

 majority of instances. 



As in northern climes, winter lambs are dropped in 

 weather that is usually more or less severe, it is necessary 

 in growing them to have shelter provided sufficiently warm 

 to protect the young lambs from hazard through exposure 

 until they are a few days old. Such shelter may be pro- 

 vided by a basement of a barn, dry, airy and sunny, or by a 

 lambing pen or house built or fitted up for such use. As 

 soon as the lambs are well started, it is not especially 

 necessary that they shall be kept in quarters much warmer 

 than would be suitable for a breeding flock, but of course 

 temperatures lower than a certain degree will retard in- 

 crease and will make it more costly. The dams should 

 be in reasonably good condition when the lambs are 

 weaned, and must then be heavily fed on foods suitable 

 for milk production until the lambs are sold. The fodder 

 should be leguminous, fine in growth rather than coarse, 



