180 DRAFTING — EEGISTEATION. 



The principal special and, in prime flocks, exceptional 

 defects which call for drafting, are weakness of constitution, 

 predispositions to particular diseases, poor qualities either as 

 breeders or mothers, difficulties of any kind connected with 

 lambing, tendencies to barrenness, or any important vices, 

 such as wool-biting, jumping, untamable wildness, &o. Ewes 

 which have attained an advanced age are usually excluded 

 unless they are peculiar favorites. If crones are retained on 

 account of their marked value as breeders, they ought, both 

 on the score of utility and appearance, to be separated from 

 the rest of the flock and fed and nursed by themselves. 



The selection of the young stock to take the place of the 

 drafted sheep,, should not depend on one examination, 

 however deliberate and careful. It is one of the most 

 important operations of the sheep farm, and can only be 

 properly perfbnned by noting the characteristics of every 

 animal in the young flock, from the time it is yeaned until 

 that for selection arrives. 



The best time for drafting is at shearing. There is no 

 other one period during the entire year when all the charac- 

 teristics of each individual are either so apparent to the eye, 

 or so fresh in the recollection, as then. No person ever 

 attains so perfect a knowledge of the fleece in any other way 

 as by seeing it roll from the carcass under the shears, spread 

 out on the folding table, handled into and out of the wool- 

 press, and put to the last and crowning test of being 

 separtely weighed. The least defect of form, too, is then 

 laid most naked. And, finally, in the case of sheep not 

 permanently numbered, if the drafting and selection are not 

 then made, the removal of the fleece usually destroys all 

 means of distinctly identifying the animal, and consequently 

 of recalling its past history, unless in the case of a few very 

 superior or otherwise peculiar animals. 



Registration. — Some owners of small and very carefully 

 managed flocks remember, or imagine they remember, the 

 history of every sheep in them ; but this is obviously 

 impracticable in regard to flocks of any considerable size. A 

 history of each individual sheep is by no means necessaiy in 

 a flock kept mainly for wool-growing or mutton purposes, or 

 in order to efiect a good and even a rapid degree of general 

 improvement in any flock; but it is indispensable to the 

 breeder to enable him to make the greatest individual as 

 well as general improvement — to preserve his pedigrees 



