RAISING EARLY LAMBS. 
25 
bucks and 4 ewes. The ten Dorset ewes served by Shrop¬ 
shire bucks dropped 9 lambs, 5 bucks and 4 ewes. 
To make the comparison a little easier to see, the above 
figures have been reduced to the basis of 100 ewes and give 
the following results: 
Sets of 
Larabe. Twins. 
100 Shropshire ewes served by Shropshire bucks dropped. 94 7 
100 Shropshire ewes served by Dorset bucks dropped.130 40 
100 Dorset ewes served by Dorset bucks dropped .134 33 
100 Dorset ewes served by Shropshire bucks dropped.90 0 
Figured from the side of the ewe, 200 Shropshire 
ewes, half served by Shropshire bucks and half by Dorset 
bucks produced 224 lambs with 47 sets of twins. 200 Dor¬ 
set ewes, with the same service produced 224 lambs with 33 
sets of twins. Figuring from the side of the buck, 200 
ewes, half Shropshire and half Dorset and all served by 
Shropshire bucks, produced 184 lambs with 7 sets of twins. 
200 ewes, the same but served by Dorset bucks produced 
264 lambs with 73 sets of twins. 
It is evident from these last sets of comparisons that the 
prepotencey toward the production of twins lay with the 
bucks and not with the ewes. It is generally conceded that 
the Dorset is one of the most prolific sheep and the bucks 
ought to have had this quality more pronounced for they 
were pure bred while the ewes were grades. 
, So far everything seemed to favor the Dorsets as the 
more profitable sheep. But these lambs were dropped in 
the middle of winter and the twins did not seem to have the 
vigor to stand cold weather so well as those that had been 
born singly. Moreover the ewes seemed to be able to give 
an abundance of milk for one lamb but not enough for two. 
The ewes were given grain, and a lamb creep was pro¬ 
vided where cracked grain was kept all the time. The 
lambs learned to eat grain before they were a month old 
and after that, ate nearly as much as the ewes. Yet in spite 
of this the twin lambs did not do so well as the others and 
those that we lost were almost entirely from the twins. 
We began selling March 10 and sent off the last May 
21. The price was 15 cents per pound dressed weight. 
The four sets of lambs of different parentage gave the 
following results: 
