TURNING TO GRASS — TAGGING. 141 



Turning out to Grass. — In northern regions, where 

 sheep are yarded and fed only on dry feed in winter, they 

 should be put upon their grass feed, in the spring, gradually. 

 It. is better to turn them out before the new grass has started 

 much, and only during a portion of each day for the first few 

 days, returning them to their yards at night and feeding them 

 with dry hay. If this course is pursued, they make the 

 change without that purging and sudden debility which 

 ensues when they are kept up later, and abruptly changed 

 from entire dry to entire green feed. This last is always a 

 very perilous procedure in the case of poor or weak sheep, 

 particularly if they are yearlings or pregnant ewes. 



Tagging. — After the fresh grass starts vigorously in the 

 spring, sheep are apt to purge or scour, notwithstanding the 

 preceding precautions. The wool about and below the vent 

 becomes covered with dung, which dries into hard knobs if 

 the scouring ceases ; otherwise, it accumulates in a filthy 

 mass which is unsightly, unhealthy, and to a certain degree 

 dangerous — for maggots are not unfrequently generated 

 under it. In the case of a ewe, it is a great annoyance, and 

 sometimes damage to her lanib, for the filth trickles down the 

 udder and teats so that it mingles with the milk drawn by 

 the lamb, and often miserably besmears its face. I have seen 

 the lamb thus prevented from attempting to suck at all. 

 Whether the dung is wet or dry it cannot be washed out by 

 brook washing : it must sooner or later be cut from the fleece 

 and at the waste of considerable wool. 



Tagging sheep before they are let out to grass, prevents 

 this. This is cutting away the wool around the 

 vent and from the roots of the tail down the 

 inside of the thigh, (as shown in cut,) in a strip 

 wide enough so that the dung will fall to the 

 ground without touching any wool. Wool on or 

 about the udder which is liable to impede the 

 lamb in. sucking, should also be cut away — but 

 not to an unnecessay degree during cold weather, so as to 

 denude this delicate part of adequate protection. Tagging is 

 sometimes performed by an attendant holding the sheep on 

 its rump with its legs drawn apart for the convenience of the 

 shearer. But it is best done by the attendant holding the 

 sheep on its side on a table, or on a large box, covered, except 

 at one end, and the breech of the sheep is placed at the 

 opening, so that the tags will drop into it as they are cut 



