194 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



odd or even number of heats was not always possible and occasional 

 disappointments were met with. 



A poultry breeder, who was struck with the account of this 

 gentleman's tests, applied the theory to his poultry. Selecting a 

 prolific hen, he placed her eggs in two baskets alternately as they 

 were laid. They were then hatched out, with the result that one 

 lot were all cockerels and the other all pullets. 



PROLIFICACY. 



The different breeds of sheep vary much in regard to their 

 prolificacy. It as a general opinion that sheep in their wild state 

 give birth to but one lamb at a time. Prolificacy is studied a great 

 deal more by flockmasters today than it was in olden times. Al- 

 though Youatt in his famous work remarks : 



"Ewes, yearly by twinning, rich masters do make, 

 The lambs of such twinners for breeders go take." 

 It all depends on the milking qualities of the ewe whether twins 

 are profitable or not. Ewes are like cows, some are good milkers 

 and others are very poor ones. It would seem that nature would 

 provide the ewe with the proper sustenance for her offspring, but 

 occasionally she does not. 



The Dorset has almost always been famous for prolificacy, 

 not only so far as twins are concerned but also for breeding twice 

 a year. On the whole, so far as the mutton breeds are concerned, 

 twins are more desirable than singles under the present conditions 

 of intensive farming. A big, strong, deep-milking ewe is just as 

 able to take care of a pair of good lambs as a poor individual is 

 one, and sometimes far better able to do so. It has been stated 

 that the smaller breeds of sheep are more prolific than the larger 

 ones, but it is a question if this is quite correct, since Hampshires 

 and Suffolks are well known for their fecundity. The Shropshire 

 comes under the category of prolific breeds. Someone recently 

 compiled a table from the American Shropshire Record, which 

 shows that of 23,000 pure-bred Shropshire sheep, 59 per cent of 

 them were singles, 39 per cent twins and 1 per cent triplets. An 

 English Shropshire breeder recently said that one of his cot- 

 tagers, who had a field or two, was in the habit of buying about 

 ten of his old ewes each year and invariably reared more than 

 double as many lambs. In a flock competition in England some 

 time ago for flocks of fifty ewes or a little over the number of 

 lambs raised to the first of May per hundred ewes was 185, 166, 

 163 and 159 respectively. For flocks of one hundred or a little 

 over the figures per hundred ewes were 171, 161, 160 and 160 re- 

 spectively. For flocks of 150 or over the lambs per hundred ewes 

 were 160, 158, 157 and 145. Most of these flocks were pure-bred 

 Shropshires. It would seem, according to these figures, that with 



