186 Western Live-stock Managevient 



arated from the remainder of the flock and • shut up in 

 one of the lambing pens. If she has been properly fed 

 and cared for during the winter, little difficulty will 

 present itself. She must be watched carefully to see that 

 the Iamb is presented properly and that she own her 

 lamb after it is born. The latter difficulty presents itself 

 very commonly when the ewe has little milk. With stub- 

 born ewes stanchions often have to be used. These are 

 made by driving stakes into the ground one on each side 

 of the ewe's neck. In such a case it is well to feed the 

 lamb a little cow's milk until its mother's milk-flow is 

 started. The ewe and her lamb should be penned up 

 until the proper maternal relations have been well es- 

 tablished. This system of penning the ewes about to 

 lamb will prove valuable, especially when the ewes drop 

 twins or triplets. In such a case if the ewe were left with 

 the flock she very likely would disown one of them, be- 

 cause the first lamb born usually is the strongest and would 

 wander off looking for its first meal while its mother was 

 giving birth to the other lamb, or lambs. It would thus 

 be surrounded by other ewes and its mother would lose 

 its scent and consequently disown it. When a lamb dies 

 the ewe may be induced to become a stepmother to some 

 orphan. The method of making the ewe own a strange 

 lamb has been discussed in the chapter on lambing of 

 range ewes. 



Castration and docJdng. 



All male lambs not intended for breeding purposes 

 must be castrated. As a rule, at about the age of three 

 months the ram lambs begin to know that they are males, 

 become restless and not only fail to gain but actually lose 

 the flesh put on in an early period. As a result, ram lambs 



