216 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



is extremely simple. Native Mexican sheep owners 

 often use corrals (small yards built of cedar or 

 pinion posts set close in the ground) in which the 

 flocks (called "herds" throughout the West) are 

 confined at night. This secures them from loss from 

 coyotes or mountain lions. The corralling is, how- 

 ever, a serious injury to the sheep since they must 

 travel some distance to and from the enclosure and 

 what is worse must await the pleasure of the herder 

 before they can go forth to graze in the morning. 



CHAKACTER OF MEXICAN SHEEP. 



The native Mexican sheep is indeed a "sorry" 

 animal, having few characteristics that we are wont 

 to associate with good form or character. It has a 

 thin neck and feeble look, a curving back, round, 

 contracted belly, thin legs and rather woe-begone 

 countenance. The wool is coarse and scanty, the 

 bellies and legs being often bare. And yet the 

 Mexican sheep is not without its peculiar virtues. 



It is fairly prolific and the lambs are hardy. It 

 is a great traveler and can subsist upon scanty and 

 dry forage. When worst comes to worst, and in 

 the lower country along the Eio Grande, far down 

 in Texas and across the river in old Mexico rain 

 does not fall and all herbage is dried up and turned 

 to dust, the humble Mexican still subsists upon the 

 tender ends of twigs, upon cactus joints, upon the 

 withered grass growing between the cactus bunches 

 and upon dry weeds that have blown by the wind 

 across the plains. They may become very much 



