DISPOSAL AND MARKETING OF SHEEP 351 



should guide in the selection of the ewe lambs, and when 

 once set aside for the home flock the temptation to sell 

 them to customers should be strenuously resisted. The 

 strongest and best only of the ram lambs should be 

 offered for immediate sale, and these should be kept apart 

 from the others. To graze them together will injure the 

 sale of the best lambs. The other ram lambs will take 

 the market better as yearlings. The cull lot for feeding 

 will include old ewes, any whose udders may have failed, 

 and lambs off in form and markings and in the character 

 of the fleece. 



When culling grade flocks there is, of course, no 

 legitimate place for the retention or sale of rams for 

 breeding uses. Much care should be exercised, however, 

 in the selection of the ewes to be retained and of the 

 ewe lambs. Unless the ewes that have suckled lambs are 

 considered in connection with the lambs, mistakes in the 

 selection of the ewes are very liable to occur. A ewe 

 should not be rejected on the sole ground that she is low 

 in flesh. If a large lamb at weaning time stands by her 

 side, the lamb is the explanation of and apology for her 

 leanness. She has been generous in the proportion of 

 food turned over to the lamb, but if she is dried and put 

 on a good pasture, she will soon pick up again. The ewe 

 that fed her lamb poorly all summer will look much better 

 at weaning time than the other. The owner of a good 

 grade flock can afford to cull severely. 



It would seem approximately correct to say that 

 grade flocks should be so renewed from year to year that 

 every three years the animals in it would be entirely 

 changed. This applies to farm conditions. The plan 

 which takes three crops of lambs from ewes and then dis- 

 poses of them meets with much favor. This is said in full 

 knowledge of the fact that some ewes may breed success- 

 fully for a much longer period. The lambs are thus pro- 

 duced by ewes in the zenith of their usefulness. The 

 ewes themselves are also disposed of at an age when they 



