206 COUPLIKG EAMS AND EWES. 



thus secured.* This enables the owners of flocks who can not 

 afford to incur the serious cost and risk of keeping a number 

 of high-priced stock rams, to obtain, notwithstanding, the 

 services of those which are best adapted to breeding with 

 each class of their ewes. And the young or less skillful 

 breeder can thus, too, obtain the immense advantage of using 

 the most perfect sire rams in the country- — those which are 

 too costly for his purchase f — and those which will improve 

 his flock more in the first generation than he could possibly 

 otherwise improve it in five generations. 



CotrPLiNG. — ^Very few flock-masters now feel that they 

 can afford to bestow the whole annual use of a choice, high- 

 priced ram on the seventy-five, or at the very utmost, on the 

 one hundred ewes he can serve, if he is permitted to run at 

 large with them; and to accomplish this, he must be a very 

 strong animal, and must be taken out of the flocks nights and 

 fed by himself. And no even tolerably good manager 

 turns two or more valuable rams at the same time into the 

 same flock to waste their strength, J excite, worry, fight, and 

 perhaps kill each other. Even the ewes are frequently injured 

 by the blows inflicted by a ram while another ram is 

 covering her. 



There are several different modes of putting ewes singly. 

 Some keep "teasers" in the flock so " aproned "§ that they 

 can not sei-ve a ewe, and daubed With lard and Venetian red 

 under the brisket, so that when a ewe will stand for them she 

 is marked red on the rump. The flock is driven several 

 times a day into a small inclosure (usually a sheep bam,) in 

 apartments of which the stock rams are kept, the " redded " 

 ewes are drawn out and each is taken to the ram for which 

 she is marked. After being served once she is turned into 

 the flock of served ewes. 



* The cnstomary price has been from $1 to $2 per ewe — hut I am informed that 

 gome leading breeders will feel themselves under ;the necessity of raising the price 

 of service. 



t Some of the more celebrated stock rams whose services are thus let, would sell 

 for more than the entire flocks of many of those who hire their services I 



t The question is sometimes asked whether the cohabitation of two males with 

 the same female, occasions superfetation, or conception after prior conception. When 

 there are two or more progeny at the same birth, facts have occasionally -occurred 

 which appeared to show quite conclusively that they were begotten by different males, 

 but such cases are exceptional ; and when there is but one progeny, no facts ever goto 

 show that it is the combined progeny of two male parents. 



§ The apron is a piece of coarse, open sacking, which covers the belly from the 

 fore to the hmd-legs, and extends half way up each side. Careful persons tie, or buckle 

 It over the back at both ends and in the middle, and then fasten it from slipping back 

 by a strap round the breast, and from slipping forward by a strap around th© breech. 

 Though allowed to bag a little in the middle, the urine soon renders It a very dirty 

 ai^ir. When 1 last used teasers, 1 kept the same one iii a flock only every third day. 



