254 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



Dakotas, Nebraska and occasionally from Montana, 

 come now and then infected. Before you buy these 

 thin lambs look at their skins. If they are chalky 

 pass them by. 



Here are ewes. This band of old ewes, in thin 

 flesh, show evidences of fairly good breeding. They 

 have a motherly look, too. We find that we can buy 

 them cheaply. What can we do with them? 



Let us look first at their teeth. Ah, I thought so ! 

 A large number of them have lost their front teeth. 

 This means two or three things. It accounts for 

 their being sent from range to market. They have 

 been culled out because they no longer could sub- 

 sist well on the tough grasses and herbage of the 

 range. It accounts mainly for their emaciation. 

 And it means to you : Am I in position to take good 

 care of these old ewes? These ewes may not be 

 too old to make a good recovery under favorable 

 conditions; they may even drop a strong crop of 

 lambs and nourish them well, but they must eat 

 more costly food than ewes that have their teeth. 



They ought to have bran, oats, shelled corn and 

 early-cut, tender hay. But they are for sale, and at 

 a low price. If it is early enough so that we can 

 breed them to good rams we may do this ; take them 

 home and at once mate them with the best rams of 

 Shropshire, Southdown, Hampshire, Dorset or 

 whatever we fancy that we can get and then carry 

 them along well, not forcing too much till after the 

 lambs are born, and after that with judgment and 

 discretion pouring into them all the good nourish- 



