156 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



during this period to make sure that each ewe 

 recognizes her own lamb and takes care of it. It 

 will always pay to have a number of small pens in 

 the lambing shed into which the ewes with their 

 newly born lambs may be placed for a few hours 

 or days until the lamb has gained a little strength 

 and until the mother has become accustomed to her 

 offspring. 



The owner should be careful to notice whether 

 the lamb sucks during the first few hours 

 of its life. Occasionally the ewe will not permit 

 this, and in some cases it will be necessary to hold 

 the ewe and teach the young lamb to suck by giv- 

 ing it a little milk with a spoon to begin with. 

 Sometimes when a ewe has twins, she will pay at- 

 tention to only one of them, perhaps the larger and 

 stronger one. Such a contingency as this must be 

 guarded against. Frequently, it is possible to sep- 

 arate the twins, giving one of them to some ewe 

 whose lamb has died. Since ewes recognize their 

 lambs by means of the sense of smell, this trick of 

 transferring lambs to a foster mother is usually 

 accomplished by tying the skin of the dead lamb 

 on the live one, leaving it for several days until the 

 ewe has become used to the adopted lamb. As 

 soon as weather conditions permit, the ewes with 

 their young lambs should be turned out in open lots 

 or pasture during the warm part of the day, but 

 should be sheltered at night until the lambs have 

 become strong and have a protecting coat of wool, 

 because the chilly spring nights are apt to be in- 

 jurious to them if unsheltered. 



FEEDING EWES AND LAMBS 



The feeding of ewes after lambing does not differ 

 radically from the methods already outlined. The 



