344 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



their contact removed, with a per cent of the danger. 



When grass comes the lambs should be taken to 

 a field where no sheep ran the previous year ; where 

 no sheep manure has been spread the previous year, 

 and where no stream or pool could bring germs from 

 some other flock. Once established there no other 

 sheep should for an instant be permitted to mingle 

 with them. 



The ewes, if there is room on the farm, may be 

 kept over for another crop of lambs, since it will 

 take two crops to produce enough ewe lambs to make 

 up their number. After that all that are not of this 

 youthful blood and free from infection should be 

 sold and the youngsters given possession. 



At all times there should be this thought: Has 

 there been opportunity during the past year for 

 any sheep to drop germs with their manure upon 

 this land? If the answer is Yes, then do not permit 

 the lambs and yearlings of the clean flock to graze 

 upon that ground for an instant. 



The extra cost of this method of producing a 

 perfectly healthly ewe flock is almost nothing. A 

 trifle of care, a constant thoughtfulness, a few hours 

 labor, and the result: a banishment of the torments 

 that render 60 per cent of farm flocks in the corn- 

 belt diseased and comparatively unprofitable. 



And having a healthy flock, absolutely without 

 parasites, they will remain so if the germs are not 

 brought in by something added to the flock. It is 

 barely possible that rabbits may carry some of the 

 same parasites that afflict sheep, as also do goats and 



