MILK lambs: how to get, grow and market 251 



able promptness will be at once apparent. This fact 

 should be taken into account by those who grow 

 milk lambs when they enter upon the work. The con- 

 sumers of milk lambs are buying a fancy article for which 

 they are paying a fancy price, hence any lack of prompt- 

 ness in filling their orders may result in the loss of that 

 particular market. 



Whether the lambs shall be shipped alive or dead 

 will depend somewhat on the distance to be covered while 

 in transit. Lambs that are delivered by conveyance may 

 be delivered alive if sold to a dealer, or dead if sold to the 

 consumer. Lambs sent by rail are usually sent dead after 

 the stomach and its appendages have been removed, but 

 such removal does not always include the heart, liver or 

 lungs. In some instances the skins are not removed but 

 more commonly they are. 



The methods followed in dressing the lambs are not 

 uniform, but the following is submitted as a method that 

 may be safely followed : The lamb is bled by making a 

 small opening, frequently in the left side of the neck, just 

 back of the head, and in front of the neck bones. The 

 blade of the knife should cut the large artery found there. 

 The stomach and entrails are then removed without dis- 

 turbing the liver, lungs or heart. Two spreaders are then 

 inserted so as to cross each other at right angles when in 

 place. These are pointed and have shoulders, and one 

 end of each is inserted in the outer side of the hind flank, 

 the other end entering the opposite side of the lamb near 

 the chest. The caul fat is then spread so as to cover all 

 the meat not covered with the skin, and is held in place 

 by skewers at the thighs and at the point of the spreaders. 

 As soon as the animal heat is all given ofif the carcass is 

 wrapped in strong paper put on tightly and it is then 

 further inclosed in burlap or sacking. Such lambs dressed 

 have sometimes been shipped in light boxes just large 

 enough to admit of slipping the carcass into them from 

 the end. 



