256 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



as there are two No. 24 ewes in tlie same flock we will have to hunt 

 them both out in order to ascertain which one is the mother of 

 the lamb we have found. It can be readily seen by this example 

 that duplicate numbering of different "bums" is not a good plan, 

 unless one is compelled to do it with a large number of "bums" 

 on hand to save time. 



In regard to the number of "bum" pens needed, it all de- 

 pends on the feed and the habits of the sheep. One man might 

 be lambing a bunch of 1,000 ewes that were in a great many cases 

 in the habit of disowning or deserting their lambs and he would 

 need forty "bum" pens to properly handle them, while another 

 man might have a like number of ewes that were good about tak- 

 ing care of their lambs and could get along with half the number 

 of pens; but more depends on the feed than on anything else. 

 If the grass is short and 'dry a greater number of ewes will desert 

 their lambs than if the grass is green and plentiful. 



If one has a permanent lambing ground, where he lambs his 

 flock every year, it pays to put up good substantial "bum" pens 

 with doors in the front. The doors can be easily put in, either to 

 slide up and down or in stanchion fashion to open at the top and 

 .made just wide enough to admit grown sheep. Where a temporary 

 lambing camp is being fitted out the "bum" pens can be quickly 

 put up by making small gatelike panels about 3% feet long or 

 the length of the pen and wiring them or fastening them with 

 hay wire between panels of regular size at intervals of about two 

 feet, or the width of the pen. 



We might add that panels make the best temporary corrals 

 of anything we know of. They should be made of pine lum- 

 ber 1x4x14, although either 12 or 16 feet lengths may be used, 

 five boards high. Four boards high will generally hold grown 

 sheep, but will not hold lambs, and a corral that will not hold lambs 

 is worse than nothing around a lambing camp. 



By means of this 'bum" system when a ewe loses or disowns 

 her lamb she is put into the "bum" pen and kept there nights 

 only till she owns the lamb, which 75 per cent of them will do 

 within a week and 50 per cent of them under three days. The 

 ewe should be turned out to graze during the day and the lamb 

 kept up in his pen. Where a man has as many as fifteen "bum" 

 ewes at one time it pays to have a herder with them during the 

 day, but where there are but a few they can be turned out with 

 some other small bunch of sheep and caught at night. 



It is a good plan to put all the numbers on one side of the 

 sheep, as by this system they are more Readily hunted out of the 

 flock. The writer uses the left side. 



In some rare instances the writer has had to keep up ewes 

 in the "bum" pen for a month before they would own their lambs, 



