THE CULTIVATOR. 
9 
feed is materially injured by severe frosts. Sheds, for the shelter 
of sheep in winter are all important, as exposure to storms is very 
injurious to them, and I ain of opinion, shelters built on the high¬ 
est part of our pastures for flocks to flee to, in severe storms in 
summer, would be of great service, as they undoubtedly frequent- 
. y contract diseases from exposure to long and cold rains, from 
which they never recover. During such exposure they contract 
violent colds, which finally become permanently seated on their 
lungs, and is, in my opinion, the cause of the loss of many sheep. 
This may be evident to all observing persons, (as they will notice 
that sheep after such rains are many of them troubled with the 
snuffles,) and shows the necessity of being very particular to house 
them during cold nights, and storms, immediately after shearing: 
the contrast being so great after losing their clothing, that a tri¬ 
fling exposure may prove fatal; and this precaution is more neces¬ 
sary with fine flocks than with coarse, as they are naturally more 
delicate, and less able to endure great changes. Water, I also con¬ 
sider very important for sheep in winter, and when it is practicable, 
should be brought into their yards, so as to be convenient to them 
at all times. I have four flocks that drink at one trough, and I ob¬ 
serve, that when they are feeding at the racks, the water trough 
will be thronged with sheep; some of them constantly leaving their 
hay for water, which satisfies me that convenient access to water, 
adds to their comfort, and consequently to the improvement of 
their condition. 
The above remarks, if you think them worth it, you are at liber¬ 
ty to publish, but my principal object in this communication is, to 
give to the public, the result of my experience in rearing lambs; 
and which I am sensible will be lost to all those that neglect their 
flocks, and to most of those that do not attend to them personally; 
as care and prompt attention to all their wants is the great secret. 
To insure the life and health of every lamb, bearing ewes should 
all be in good condition; then lambs are as likely to live as the 
young of other animals; but if the ewes are feeble, they will have 
no milk to support their lambs if they should chance to be strong 
and healthy. Feeble sheep are often exhausted in bringing forth 
their young, and consequently will take no notice of them, and 
strong as well as feeble ones, sometimes need help at such times, 
which should be done with great caution; they should never be 
helped except when their pains are on, and when they are trying 
to help themselves ; and the lamb should not be taken entirely 
away, but left so that the sheep will have to make a little exertion 
after she is left, otherwise if the sheep is at all wild, she will from 
fear of the person helping'her, make her escape and take no notice 
of her lamb. I am in the habit of helping every sheep in that situ¬ 
ation which I can come at, as it undoubtedly saves them much pain 
and exertion. Sheep should invariably be housed nights and stormy 
weather during the time of dropping lambs, and I have been in the 
habit of housing mine nights, till I wash them, to secure them 
from the ravages of the foxes. Sheep should have all the facilities 
for procuring fresh grass that is possible to give them, before and 
after the time of dropping their lambs, which adds greatiy to the 
quantity as well as quality of their milk; but turning them out 
on the fields without close attention, is often the cause of losing 
lambs, as when they are dropt on the cold ground they often become 
chilled, so as to be unable to get up, and in a short time will be 
past recovery. When I have neglected mine in that way, and found 
one that has any life left, I take it immediately to a warm room, 
and put all but its head into a pail of warm water, and then rub it 
with a dry cloth till it begins to struggle for life; and I have never 
failed of restoring such lambs the use of their limbs, though I have 
found them so far gone as to be unable for some time to observe 
any expansion of the lungs; with their limbs perfectly stiff, and 
their jaws almost immovably fixed. With such attention, you 
may have them running about in one hour, and to all appearance as 
strong as if nothing had happened to them; though they require a 
warmer atmosphere for some time than if they had not been chilled. 
Care should be taken not to feed them with milk, till they are suffi¬ 
ciently recovered, as there is danger of strangling them by the milk 
entering their lungs. I have had them injured in that way, which 
though they lived, would be a long time recovering from the effects 
of such treatment. Lambs will live twenty-four hours and even 
longer without any nourishment, and should not as a general lule 
be fed, till by their actions, you discover they are seeking food, and 
Vol. II. 2 
then they will in most cases drink without much trouble. Many 
lambs that it becomes necessary to feed, are lost for the want of suf* 
ficient food, through fear of over-feeding; but my experience 
teaches, that they should have all they will drink, and I let their own 
appetites govern. I have often had lambs of twenty-four hours old 
drink a pint of milk at once, and when they drink the most, feel 
the most assured of success in raising them. There will always in a 
large flock, be some that will not get milk enough. I am in the ha¬ 
bit of making all such ones drink that I can, by taking a basin of 
milk and giving them my thumb to suck, so as to have a full supply 
once or twice a day, till the milk of the sheep increases by the growth 
of feed. The milk of such sheep as lose their lambs should not be 
lost, but kept for the support of those that have not a full supply; 
such sheep 1 manage to make own the lambs of others, so that I 
often have lambs that draw their living from two sheep through the 
season ; this I do when I find the dead lamb before it is dry, by rub¬ 
bing it over the lamb I wish to make the sheep own, and in that 
way deceive her, and make her think it hers. Where that will not 
answer, I skin the dead one, and sew the skin on to the live one, 
which generally answers the desired end; but in case of failure in 
both the above experiments, I tie up the sheep and fetter her in a 
small pen with the lamb and the other sheep, and hold her for the 
lamb to suck several times in a day, till she will own it. As a proof 
of the truth of what I have asserted, that care and prompt attention 
are the great secret of success, I will relate my success last year, 
which I am far from attributing to any good luck I have over others, 
as I believe that prosperity or adversity, in all such cases is the 
result of good or bad management, of care or neglect. Of one hun¬ 
dred and thirty-one lambs I had dropt last spring, I raised one hun¬ 
dred and twenty-six. 
A few words as to future management and I have done. Lambs 
should always be left at home when sheep are to be washed, as 
they are saved much fatigue where the distance is considerable, 
and many accidents incident to a pen, crowded as they are at such 
times; besides the advantage of having the sheep go directly home 
without any trouble, after washing. Ticks are very injurious to 
sheep of all ages, but more so to lambs, as they have the trouble of 
them in summer ; the ticks leaving the old ones for a more secure 
retreat on the lambs. To destroy ticks, I take 10 or 12 lbs. of to¬ 
bacco stalks for one hundred lambs, (which I buy of the tobacconist 
for as many pence,) and at the time I shear sheep, put it into a 
tub sufficiently large to dip them in, and fill it with water, and let it 
soak six or eight days, when I get up my lam^s, mark, dock, and 
alter them, then dip them into the tobacco juice; this not only kills 
the ticks, but is serviceable to the wounds made by docking and 
altering, and is all the remedy I ever apply to such wounds. Dip¬ 
ping the lambs in that way, two successive years, will destroy all 
the ticks in the flock. 
The method of docking lambs by taking hold of the tail and cut¬ 
ting it off while the animal is struggling to escape,is very cruel; as 
it leaves the bone longer than the skin, which not only makes it 
very sore, but induces the flies to work at it, which endangers the 
life of the lamb. My method is, to have a man take up the lamb, 
and place the tail bottom upwards on the square edge of a block; 
then with a large knife, I crowd the skin which is loose up to the 
body, and strike the knife with a hammer, which leaves the skin 
longer than the bone, and consequently it closes together over the 
bone, and the wound heals in a short time. I alter lambs by cut¬ 
ting the pouch off close to the body, which leaves nothing to im¬ 
pede the shears, more than cording, and is attended with less trou¬ 
ble. Lambs that have much wool on them, should be sheared 
about the pouch, to prevent the blood and wool from becoming so 
hard as to obstruct the discharge of matter from the wound. Lambs 
should be weaned the last of August, and have a good chance for feed 
till November; then oats in the bundle two or three months, as their 
condition may require. I might write much more which would 
be useful to wool growers who are inexperienced, but I am alrea¬ 
dy admonished that the length of this, may preclude its admission 
into vour valuable paper. 
j.Buel. DANIEL S. CURTIS. 
LARGE SHEEP. 
Attracted a few days since, by a notice in one of the daily papers, 
of the exhibition of some fat sheep in the rear of Bement’s Hotel, 
