CAEE AND MANAGEMENT OF ANIMALS 857 



methods to adopt, in order to control abortion from the 

 above causes. 



Ewes, as we have previously mentioned, only require to 

 be kept in good store condition until lambing occurs, but 

 they must not be allowed to get too low, especially when 

 the grass fails. Hay should then be given, and this will 

 also prevent them from eating roots to excess, which is 

 generally admitted to be dangerous with in-lamb ewes. 



Lambing Season. — The lambing fold has already been 

 described. There are several kinds, but the principle is 

 much the same in all. The lambing season is one of 

 mortality, from three to four per cent, of the ewes will die, 

 either from difficulties in lambing or parturient after-effects. 

 Nor is this to be wondered at, when it is borne in mind that 

 shepherds, excellent as they undoubtedly are, indispensable 

 though they be, are not learned in antiseptic midwifery, 

 and despise the simple rules of cleanliness on which this 

 is based. Cleanliness in the thoroughly surgical sense of 

 the term, is only understood or appreciated by few outside 

 the profession ; so that soiled fingers, long and dirty finger- 

 nails, and rough instruments, take the place of skilled 

 advice and antiseptics, with the result that the mortality is 

 excessive. 



But the whole of the mortality does not necessarily occur 

 as the result of difficult presentations ; parturient fever is 

 common, highly infectious, and spreads by means of the 

 shepherd, the soiled surroundings, and the after- births left in 

 the pen. "When this disease appears the lambing-pen must 

 be at once broken up and destroyed ; let it be set fire to, 

 and the ground on which it stands thus disinfected. An 

 opportunity should be taken of ploughing up the place and 

 getting a crop off it. All membranes, foetuses, and dead 

 ewes, must be buried deeply in lime in some place to which 

 sheep have not access, and in this work on no account must 

 the shepherd join. The sanitary measures for controlling 

 this disease, will be dealt with presently in considering 

 other infectious diseases of the lambing-pen. 



One of the great difficulties in a lambing-pen is main- 



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