THE MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP ON THE FARM. 29 
s 
pigment. The Department of Agriculture has had excellent results 
with all of these. Breeders sometimes tattoo their initials in the 
ears of all their sheep so as to eliminate any question of breeding. 
Branding.—Branding is a common way of marking sheep in the 
West. It is done with branding. paint upon the wool or with a hot 
iron upon the nose. Branding with paint upon the wool is the most 
common method. The paint brands are stamped upon a prominent 
place so that they can be readily seen; either on top of the shoulders, 
on the back, or on the rump. Quite often lots of sheep that are to 
be kept separate are branded some number in order that they can be 
readily identified if they become mixed. Different-colored branding 
paints are used, the more common being red and black. The mame 
are made of either wood or a small iron tod about three-eighths of an 
inch in diameter. Branding paints can be purchased upon the market 
ready for use, or they can be prepared upon the farm. 
The Diadiramnage of branding hes in the difficulty of securing a 
paint that will remain legible throughout the season and yet scour 
off readily:in the scouring processes of the wool. When the brands 
must be clipped off by hand the resulting loss of wool and labor is 
considerable. Branding with a hot iron is sometimes used in the 
range country because it makes a permanent mark, but this method 
is rarely, if ever, practiced upon the farm. Burning a brand upon the 
horns is used to some extent, but this method has been used more in 
foreign countries than in America. 3 
CASTRATION. 
It is surprising how many native lambs come to market without 
having been castrated. The operation is an extremely simple one, 
and the financial losses that result from failure to perform it are con- 
siderable. Aram lamb develops sexual characteristics at about three 
months of age. They then become restless, worry the rest of the flock, 
and fight among themselves and cause a generally unsatisfactory 
condition. They cease to make satisfactory gains themselves, and 
prevent the other members of the flock from dog so. The following 
experiment! was conducted to determine the difference in gain between . 
ram and wether lambs. Two uniform lots, so far as breeding and age 
were concerned, of 12 each, were selected, one lot being castrated, 
the other left entire. Both received the same feed and treatment, 
yet at the end of the feeding period the rams weighed 900 pounds 
and the wethers 1,020 pounds. 
Tn another instance? statistics secured from several years’ obser- 
vation upon a flock showed that wether lambs gained in 60 days on 
-1 Abstract Experiment Station Record. 
2 Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, pp. 163-165, 1901. 
