504 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK iv. 



to check the flow of milk. They are kept as scavengers until a fortnight 

 before the tupping period, when it is desirable to get them into an 

 improving condition by giving them a run on rape or green mustard, 

 in order to bring them into season earlier, and to make them breed 

 doubles. Before breeding the ewes should be examined, and any which 

 have broken mouths, deformities, bad udders, or which put their 

 wethers, or gave other trouble at lambing, or are not true to type or 

 breed, should be culled to be fattened off, and their places should be 

 filled with a selection of the best two-teeth tegs or theaves. After 

 tupping they may be kept on sparser rations, getting a run over pastures 

 and stubbles. 



It is now generally agreed among flockmasters that there is consider- 

 able risk attendant on feeding roots to in-lamb ewes except very 

 moderately. It has been observed that after a poor root season there is 

 a better yeaning time and a healthier crop of lambs than when roots are 

 plentiful. On the other hand, perhaps, there are few districts in which 

 heavier falls of lambs are obtained than in some of the almost purely 

 arable, where for want of pasture the sheep are kept on roots for some 

 time before lambing ; where this is the case the ewes are supplied with 

 a considerable quantity of dry food daily. It is probable that the want 

 of success when the ewes are kept on turnips is due more to the want 

 of nutritious food than to any injurious principle contained in the roots. 

 Turnips contain very little nutritious matter except sugar, and this can- 

 not supply all that is necessary to keep up the health of the ewe, and 

 to build up the young lamb within her, and she either fails herself or 

 the lamb goes wrong. If a fair allowance of dry food is given with the 

 roots, and especially if a small quantity of nitrogenous food, such as malt- 

 dust, bran, peas, or cotton-cake, is given to the ewes during the month 

 preceding lambing, a successful lambing season may be expected. This 

 is different to the practice of making ewes too fat, in which case harm is 

 done ; the endeavour should be to make the ewes muscularly strong, and 

 not fat. The greater success with ewes in seasons when roots are 

 scarce is based on this principle, for then their diet has to be aug- 

 mented with plentiful supplies of dry foods which contain nitrogenous 

 in addition to starchy matter. 



As soon as the ewes are expected to begin to yean, they should be 

 separated from the rest of the flock, and placed in a more sheltered 

 paddock, and brought to the stack-yard, or to some sheltered place, every 

 night when the pastures are not too far off. Where they are at a dis- 

 tance from the farm a spacious littered fold or shed would be a great 

 improvement ; on one side of it should be a warm cottage-hut, provided 

 with a chimne} r , and a stove for warming milk, and also with a bed, on 

 which the shepherd may lie down. Here he should sleep during the 

 lambing season, in order that he may be ready to watch, assist, and 

 tend any ewes that may be about to lamb, and, if necessary, to give aid. 

 Some farmers have huts of this description on four wheels, to draw 

 about with the flock wherever the sheep may be, and, on extensive downs, 

 this is an excellent plan. But, on farms of a moderate size, it is prefer- 

 able to have one or two well-sheltered enclosures, to which the flock 

 may be taken without any distant driving ; for, although the fold may 



