Range Sheep 133 



a small part cut out for the neck. A string is looped in 

 each corner on the lower end of the blanket through which 

 the hind legs of the lamb are put. On each side of the 

 front of the blanket a string is fastened to be tied across 

 the lamb's chest. The use of the blanket is limited to 

 stormy weather. In lambing on the open range many 

 lambs are lost because of cold rains or snows that occur 

 in the first few hours of the lamb's life. If it is storming 

 at the time the lamb is dropped, one of these blankets is 

 placed on the lamb and left from two to five hours as the 

 occasion may require. Care has to be exercised in its 

 use as the blanket may tend to cause some ewes to disown 

 their lambs. 



When the range is level, a lambing wagon is often used. 

 This wagon has a broad, flat-bottomed rack, which is 

 divided into about twenty-one small pens, each barely 

 large enough to hold the ewe and lamb. Each pen is so 

 arranged that it opens toward the back. This wagon 

 goes out on the range every morning. As each ewe 

 lambs, she and her lamb are placed in one of these pens. 

 As soon as the wagon is full, it returns to the corral 

 where the ewes and lambs are placed in the care of an 

 experienced shepherd. Here the ewes with young lambs 

 are banded together into an infant herd, much the same 

 as when the wagon is not used. At first, there are about 

 100 in each infant band, but as the lambs grow older the 

 smaller bands are put together, thus gradually increasing 

 the herd until at the end of about ten or fifteen days 

 there will be 1200 or 1500 ewes with their lambs in each 

 band. The lamb bands are from this time on driven 

 greater distances from the home ranch, but are not usually 

 moved to the summer range until they are a month or 

 six weeks old. Ewes with their new born lambs are kept 



