118 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



else and always fresh air. Doubtless when their 

 lambs came they were very strong and vigorous, 

 able soon to run beside their mothers. Under ranch 

 conditions today lambs are born very strong, and 

 it is rare to find one so weak as to be unable to 

 suck without aid. 



The writer remembers vividly his first experience 

 with lambing ewes. The first winter he let them 

 have the run of a pasture, with shelter, fed clover 

 and corn stover, and the result was a good lamb 

 crop. A few of these lambs were so remarkably 

 promising, one selling for $18 at weaning time, that 

 he was encouraged to attempt to do much better the 

 next year. That winter proved to be quite cold and 

 stormy, so he kept them rather close. Having 

 learned the value of wheat bran as a bone and mus- 

 cle builder, he fed these ewes about all the bran they 

 wanted, and they consumed a great deal, with clo- 

 ver hay. 



The lamb crop came early, and the lambs were 

 strong, being the product of hand coupling with a 

 vigorous sire. The difficulty was in the enormous 

 size of many of them, some being so large of bone 

 that it was nearly impossible for them to be deliv- 

 ered at all. One Shropshire weighed 17 pounds at 

 birth ! Its mother died soon after its delivery, and 

 the lamb itself was lost through unskillful feeding. 

 The net result was a small crop of magnificent 

 lambs secured at a cost of great labor and pains. 



The next year an old friend and shepherd coun- 

 seled him to adopt a radically different policy. 



