1 86 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



trouble in the flock, but frights and undue worrying are, however, 

 among its principal causes. Narrow doorways are an abomination 

 and the cause of innumerable abortions. If good health is to be 

 maintained in the flock it should not be confined to ill-ventilated 

 barns. Catarrh and similar troubles are born of such conditions. 

 Comfort to the flock means profit to its owner, for it increases the 

 ability of the various members to utilize food and give better re- 

 turns for such as is consumed. When the ewes are once housed and 

 yarded for the winter, they should not be allowed to roam the 

 pastures, should a temporary thaw set in. Allowing them to roam 

 the fields makes them discontented and the cold, scanty fare they 

 happen to pick up is likely to cause loss. The ewe confined too 

 closely in the barn and yards and fed to fatness on grain rations 

 never lambs so easily and with so little risk as those fed under 

 ordinary rational conditions. Fifty breeding ewes are as many as 

 should be kept in one flock, and these should be properly graded. 

 Someone has well said: A well littered yard makes a much bet- 

 ter resting place than a snowbank does for the pregnant ewe. 

 Some of our best shepherds are of the opinion that one of the prin- 

 cipal causes of goitre is the chillings the ewes get while lying 

 around on the snow. An English writer recently said: "With 

 many men there are many minds anent the best extra food for the 

 ewes, and probably the nearest way to arrive at the most satisfactory 

 plan is to practice a little common sense, and consider that we are 

 dealing with one of nature's animals. You may keep your horse 

 in perfect health on dry food in stable and the cows on pretty 

 nearly all drv food in shed, but the in-lamb ewe abhors such treat- 

 ment, and would flourish better even on a mountain side, where 

 nature's dietary, in shape of scant green herbage, could be picked 

 up. So, as extra diet, it seems right to hold pretty much to the 

 natural home production." Bran, oats and oilmeal'make an ideal 

 ration for the breeding ewe, and' clover hay for roughage has no 

 superior. 



MARKING THE LAMBS. 



To avoid errors and causes of mistaken identity, the young 

 lambs should be marked as soon as possible after birth, so that if 

 they should happen to stray away from the pens, no difficulty 

 would be experienced in finding them and returning them to their 

 mothers. With a small pencil brush and regular sheep marking 

 fluid the lambs should be marked with the number found on the 

 ear tag of the ewe. By this method it is comparatively easy to 

 keep trace of them and avoid the annoying troubles which attend 

 the flock where the lambs are not properly marked. It is some- 

 times necessary to mark the lambs twice before ear tagging, since 

 the marks fade as the lambs grow. 



