STOCKING NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS SHEEP RANGE 15 



for any small bit of new forage and would leave adjacent spots 

 with apparently choice but older and more mature forage almost 

 entirely imgrazed. Except in early spring, they seemed reluctant to 

 graze areas which supported old forage from a previous crop even 

 though large quantities of green forage were intermixed. In the 

 fall the sheep were less active and consequently the area covered in 

 a day was much less than in a day of summer grazing. Range 

 sheep naturally graze very irregularly and are likely to damage the 

 range locally by heavy grazing and trampling unless their movements 

 are controlled by fencing or good herding. 



BEDDING 



The ewes usually bedded down at night, particularly during the 

 cool seasons and when predators were not active. In late evening 

 an hour or more after sunset they would lie down in a compact group 

 where a fence or other obstruction provided some real or fancied 

 protection from enemies, and would be up grazing again at the first 

 hint of dawn. There was no indication of a desire to return each 

 night to an established bed ground. Instead, the sheep bedded 

 near a fence or any other obstruction which happened to be close 

 at hand whenever night overtook them. Jardine observed this 

 tendency in his early studies of pastural sheep grazing (7). Evidently 

 therefore, the one-night bedding-out system encouraged on national- 

 forest ranges fits a natural habit of range sheep and is adapted for 

 more widespread use on northern Great Plains range. It is advan- 

 tageous to the sheep as well as to the welfare of the range. The 

 advantages of the one-night versus the multiple-night bedding system 

 in maintaining the range, increasing lamb and wool production, 

 and reducing losses from poisonous plants on mountain summer 

 ranges have been well emphasized by Doran and Cassady (5). 



In summer, when insects were most active, short bedding periods 

 were alternated with intervals of grazing at night. These night 

 activities were determined by actual observations and by retracing 

 the courses traveled during the night. In the fall, particularly after 

 snow came, the yearling ewes remained longer on the bed ground, 

 frequently until mid forenoon, and were more inclined to seek a 

 sheltered spot for bedding than during the milder seasons. 



RESTING 



The daylight hours at any season in the northern Great Plains 

 provide ample time for sheep to eat their fill of range forage, provided 

 it is abundant and the animals are unmolested. In the experimental 

 pastures, particularly the conservatively and lightly stocked ones 

 the yearling ewes frequently alternated between grazing and resting 

 during the day. To rest they would stand or lie singly or in small 

 groups and chew their cuds. The rest periods were usually of short 

 duration but were frequently repeated during a day. In summer, 

 except during the periods of greatest insect activity, the sheep com- 

 monly left the bed ground at dawn, grazed for an hour or two, then 

 rested perhaps as long as an hour. Afterwards grazing was resumed 

 and frequently continued well into the forenoon. These rest periods 

 were distinctly different both in nature and purpose from those 

 periods spent bedded down at night or "shaded up" for protection 



