Some owners have one or two men working among their dropping ewes all
night when shed lambing. These men remove the new-born lambs and their
mothers from the dropping ewes as soon as they drop. This method is very
hard on the ewes; it breaks their rest. After being worked this way for
eight or ten nights, all ewes not in extra good condition, together with
those heavy with twins, will become very weak; many of them will dry up
in milk and become unable to raise a lamb. A much better system is to
partition the dropping ewes off with panels each night when they come
into the shed, allowing about 150 to each compartment or lot. Thus there
will be but few lambs to care for in each lot in the morning; these can
be readily removed when turning out the ewes. This permits the ewes to
conserve their strength for the sick spell, with a good rest at night.
TAGS.
During this lambing the sheep generally still carry their wool. This
often causes the new-born lamb considerable trouble. Careless shepherds
often allow lambs to suck tags until they die. It only takes a moment to
remove the tags from the udder, so watch all new-born lambs when lambing
"wool sheep" until you are sure the lamb has found the teat. Some
flockmasters have all their dropping ewes shorn around the udder just
before lambing sheep with the wool on.
SALT.
After lambs become two weeks old they will begin to nibble for salt. If
you do not allow them the salt they will eat any loose dirt. This may
kill a few in any case. Should your pasture contain much alkali, or soil
containing small quantities of arsenic matter, you are likely to lose
quite a number of the lambs about the time they begin eating, as they
invariably nibble for a salt substance first. If convenient, feed the
loose salt in troughs only; otherwise use block salt. Allow about three
ounces per ewe each week, or roughly speaking twenty pounds of salt for
each one hundred ewes and their lambs per week. They will require this
amount only where they are on very soft, green feed. Upon the range,
where there is considerable natural salt feed, or the water is strongly
alkalized, they will not consume that amount. Where they are given salt
at regular intervals there is no danger of over-feeding. Salt is good
for the wool; it makes good healthy lambs.
CHILLED LAMBS.
Chilled lambs bring "chilled men." These lambs take the life and
incentive out of many "new men" who stand around in dejected spirits,
while the real shepherd does much of their work to revive and prevent
chilled lambs everywhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account