General Care of Sheep and Lambs. 481 



779. Turning to pasture. — With the springing of the grass, ewes 

 and lambs should be turned to pasture for a short time during the 

 warm part of the day. It is best to accomplish the change gradually 

 and while the grass is short. After a few hours spent in the sunshine, 

 nibbling at the grass, the ewes and lambs should be returned to shelter, 

 where a full feed awaits them. When the grass has become ample and 

 nutritious, stable feeding may be dropped for ewes, or both ewes and 

 lambs, according to the plan followed. With good pasture, breed- 

 ing ewes need no grain. Indeed, we may look forward to the pas- 

 ture season as marking the time to "draw the grain from their sys- 

 tems," as it is termed by feeders. In some instances pastures so 

 stimulate the milk flow of ewes that the over-supply of rich milk 

 causes digestive derangement and sudden death with young lambs. 

 The shepherd should forestall such trouble by removing the ewes 

 from the pasture after a few hours grazing each day, and by giving 

 hay or other dry feeds, thereby reducing the milk flow. 



It is usually best to feed the lambs concentrates in addition to what 

 they get from dams and pasture. To this end, at some convenient 

 point in the pasture let there be a "lamb-creep," and in a space 

 accessible by way of the creep a trough for feeding grain. When- 

 ever the lamb passes thru the creep it should find something in this 

 trough tempting the appetite, — oats, bran, pea meal, and corn meal 

 constituting the leading articles. Grain never gives such large re- 

 turns as when fed to thrifty young animals, and the growing lamb 

 is no exception. 



780. At weaning time. — Lambs of the mutton breeds, more or 

 less helpless at birth, are lusty at four months of age, and will be 

 found grazing regularly beside their dams in pasture when not at 

 rest or eating grain beyond the lamb-creep. At this age, for their 

 own good as well as that of the ewes, weaning time is at hand. If 

 possible, advantage should be taken of a cool spell in summer to 

 wean the lambs. Lambs weaned during excessively hot weather may 

 receive a serious setback because of the heat and the fretting for 

 their mothers. The lambs should be so far separated from their dams 

 that neither can hear the bleating of the other. For a few days the 

 ewes should be held on short pasture or kept on dry feed in the yard. 

 The udders should be examined, and if necessary, as is often the 

 case with the best mothers, they should be drained of milk a few times 

 lest inflammation arise. The lambs should be put on the best pas- 

 ture and given a liberal supply of grain in addition. New clover 

 seeding is especially relished, while young second-crop clover is also 



