122 BRITISH SHEEP AND SHEPHERDING. 



stomachs are well filled, to prevent their eating too ravenously. 

 Other foods occasionally cause it, and it is not restricted to lambs, 

 as sheep of all ages may be affected with it, especially in windy 

 weather, though why windy weather should have any influence is 

 not apparent. The shepherd, however, should always be on his 

 guard. 



As the autumn-sown catch crops come in, the lambs require 

 them, and if they can be changed two or three times a day, so as 

 to get variety, they thrive better. Grass, or seeds, green tops of 

 rape or kale, and vetches or other autumn-sown catch crop, make 

 an excellent diet. When cabbages come in they are very valuable, 

 as there is scarcely anything on which lambs thrive so well. The 

 great aim is to keep the lambs from diarrhoea or scour. They lose 

 flesh rapidly when they scour, and it takes a long time to get them 

 into a thrifty condition again. Sweet food is absolutely necessary 

 and nothing tends so much to rectify the bowels as a small quantity 

 of winter barley, grown as a catch crop. It would pay every sheep 

 farmer to grow a small piece of this crop every year, as it gives a 

 good return, in addition to its medicinal properties. Another 

 remedy for scour is to allow the lambs to nibble the shoots of a 

 whitethorn hedge. The astringent properties of the shoots have 

 a decidedly beneficial effect. 



When the lambs are weaned they may be regarded as tegs. 

 Until recent years it was not until autumn that this title was 

 given them, but owing to their more rapid maturity under present 

 systems of breeding and management, the career of a sheep is 

 much shorter than it was. Except among the less improved breeds, 

 existing under conditions which permit little alteration in feeding, 

 as on hill land, three or four-year-old wethers have become a 

 thing of the past. In the more highly developed breeds the sheep 

 pass through the comparative stages of lamb, teg, and wether, 

 in as little as ten months. The lambs are sometimes shorn in 

 July, and so lose their teg locks ; the short wool which grows 

 in the autumn gives them the appearance of wethers, and they 

 go to the market as wethers. 



