RATE OP LAMBING 417 



as coyotes, wolves, bob cats, mountain lions, and bears will not be a 

 serious problem. Young lambs are toothsome morsels to these 

 animals, and they will risk a great deal to get them. Owners, think- 

 ing that they will gain by getting out where feed is plentiful, some- 

 times make the mistake of locating their lambing grounds in an 

 isolated region far away from other lambing bands, and as a result, 

 predatory animals from far and near prey upon them. 



As a rule, extra helpers have to be employed in lambing, whose 

 sole duty is to guard against the animals that would play havoc 

 among the ewes and lambs. They kill as many of these predatory 

 prowlers as they can by shooting, trapping, and placing poisoned 

 bait, and they scare them away during the night by firing blank 

 cartridges, building fires, and hanging out lanterns. 



Method of Handling. — 'During lambing the method of handling 

 consists in dividing the band up into small groups as the ewes lamb, 

 and of combining these groups as the lambs grow old enough to 

 keep from becoming lost from their mothers when placed in larger 

 groups. The smallest groups are the " day drop " and the " night 

 drop." That is, the ewes which lamb through the day constitute 

 one group and the ewes which lamb at night form another. About 

 24 hours after the "night drop" these two groups are combined 

 and in 72 to 96 hours this newly-formed group may be combined 

 with another made by combining the succeeding day and night 

 drops. To make the above clearer, suppose the day and night drops 

 of Monday are combined on Wednesday morning and the day and 

 night drops of Tuesday, on Thursday morning. Then the two 

 groups made by combining the day and night drops of Monday and 

 Tuesday may be combined on Friday or Saturday morning. This 

 process of combining into larger and larger groups continues accord- 

 ing to the judgment of those in charge until the whole band is 

 together again and ready to move away from the lambing grounds 

 (Fig. 231). 



Rate of Lambing. — Usually the rate of lambing is greatest dur- 

 ing the second or third weeks of the period. When the rate of 

 births is at its highest the lambing camp is a very busy place and 

 there is seemingly more or less crudeness in the way much of the 

 work is done. As a rule, a greater supply of trained laborers would 

 save more lambs and cut down the loss of ewes, but trained laborers 

 are very scarce and in many instances it is impossible to get an 

 adequate force. In these days when much depends on a successful 

 27 



