SHEEP 369 



by their wool, they are apt to lose a great many. Still others prefer 

 to wait until after lambing before shearing and dipping, as, if there 

 should be a cold spell, the -ewes will stay with their lambs better. 

 This, however, necessitates dipping the lambs also and results in 

 setting them back to a greater or less degree. The sheep are sheared 

 before lambing, if the weather permits. The custom is to make a 

 contract with a shearing outfit, the price being seven cents per sheep 

 with board, or eight cents per sheep without board, there being 

 usually twenty to twenty-four men in an outfit. If the sheep are not 

 too wrinkled a good man will shear on an average about one hun- 

 dred in a day. 



The wool is of medium grade, having about sixty-five per cent 

 shrinkage. From six and a half to eight pounds of wool per head 

 is secured, according to the grade of the sheep. The wool is usually 

 put up in sacks of from 275 to 350 pounds each and consigned to 

 local warehouses in Reno and Elko or else sold direct to Eastern 

 buyers, most of it going to Boston. In a few instances, where the 

 wool has to be hauled some distance to the railroad, it is put up in, 

 bales. The price received by Messrs. Anderson & Duborg at Beo- 

 wawe by selling to Eastern buyers direct was thirteen and one-eighth 

 cents Yer pound. The warehouses usually sell by auction to the 

 highest bidder, but a movement is on foot to do away with the mid- 

 dleman and sell the wool direct to the firms in Boston, the only ex- 

 pense being the storage and shipment to the warehouse. 



After shearing, the sheep are driven about a distance of five 

 miles to a natural hot spring where a dipping plant has been in- 

 stalled. The water from the spring is boiling and is carried through 

 a ditch to the tank. When all the sheep have been dipped, the ewes 

 start for their lambing grounds, and the wethers for their summer 

 range. On account of the young sheep being separated from their 

 mothers, it is necessary to have two men to take care of a band of 

 2,500 or 3,000 sheep. The camp tender has a wagon, pitches camp 

 and cooks the meals, one camp tender attending to two bands. Dry 

 ground on the lower foothills is selected for lambing purposes and 

 five or six men are put in charge of each band. When lambing com- 

 mences the sheep do not travel more than a mile a day, the lambs 

 dropped during the day being rounded up into a bunch by them- 

 selves and a man put in charge of them, the rest of the band feeding 

 off a short distance. Each day's lambing is thus rounded up into a 

 separate bunch until all the ewes in the band have dropped their 

 lambs. Sometimes the ewes, more especially the young ones, will 

 not claim their lambs, so they are tied by means of a short rope to 

 the nearest bush in order that the lambs may be fed. Shropshires 

 retain their well-known characteristics on the range by being better 

 mothers and producing hardier lambs than the Merinos. When 

 the lambs are two or three days old the ewes are gradually brought 

 together into larger bunches until they number about 700, which, 

 with their lambs, makes a band of about 1,400. They remain this 

 way for about two weeks when the lambs are branded, their tails cut 

 and the males castrated, processes which are commonly known 



