Total Per Cent Lambing Rules

Part 1

Transcriber's note:

Changes to the text and known problems are listed at the end of the book. Text bracketed by underscores was in italics in the original book, i. e. words in italics. Words in the text (not the titles or cover page) which are ALL CAPITALS were small capitals in the original book.

Total Per Cent Lambing Rules

COPYRIGHT 1915 BY THOMAS BOYLAN

Total Per Cent Lambing Rules

Copyright 1915 by Thomas Boylan

To Those Lambing Ewes:

It is quite impossible to give rules that will cover each day all your environs, as shelter, feed and water, help, etc. However, under ordinary circumstances, the following will prove successful:

These pages being written for the one who would try, it is the object and desire of the writer to explain to the inexperienced hand, in a plain manner, the work of lambing sheep, especially under range conditions. Having made a study of the work for years, we have seen the utter impossibility of verbally explaining the many necessary details to the "new men" each year. We admit lambing ewes in large numbers successfully is somewhat of a fine art, still common sense, patience and endurance will allow any one adapted to the care of live stock--which means a person who appreciates the worth and meaning of life in any form--to lamb sheep. Common sense will permit any one to readily have at least some idea of the physical endurance, both as to temperature and nutrition, of the animal in his care. The patience which enables you to endure the inclemency of any surrounding for their welfare, is also necessary, for it, too, prevents that hostile, or we might say hideous mood of mind which causes so many people to abuse live stock when it is absolutely uncalled for.

It should be self-evident to the ordinary person that life in its beginning is easily overcome by death; that nature has endowed man with a higher intellect that he may care for that life which in his esteem has sufficient worth to justify that care. A providing nature has endowed the sheep with many desires and inclinations, which, while quite clear to the naturalist, to the casual observer and shepherd often appear very contrary. That the sheep is the most contrary animal, other than the hog, is an assertion which often comes from a lack of knowledge of its nature.

True, when unintelligently selected surroundings compel you to howl, whistle, and dog it out of its natural contentment, it often becomes contrary, but this mood is forced upon it by its environs, of which the barking dog and the unintelligent and noisy shepherd are generally the greatest fault.

Allow sheep their natural contentment by leaving them to their own care whenever possible. They will then hold themselves to the herd and very seldom stray off. Tending sheep in this manner will permit them to show you their wants and necessities. Provide them when you can, for it pays the owner and always lightens your work.

Although sheep will soon become used to the whistling and holloing shepherd, together with the barking dog, apparently paying little attention to them, they do, nevertheless, fret, causing them to roughen and lose in flesh. We have seen sheep become so thin by such treatment that they were actually too weak to follow the herd longer. They will always do their best to stray away from such surroundings. Sheep know the intelligent shepherd never whistles, hollos, or rushes the dog at them unless it is absolutely necessary, and they very readily mind such a person.

Surely it is not the sheep that is at fault when the shepherd selects as their pasture, during a stormy day, a bleak flat or mesa, where the sheep in their discontent are compelled to run around seeking shelter or to maintain their warmth, vexing the herder, causing him to dog them severely.

BEGINNING.

Should you have plenty of pasture, put your dropping ewes upon the lambing ground 143 days after the rams were first with them. This gives them a little time to locate, their dropping time not being up until the 145th day. If lambing upon the open range, two or three good, live men to each 1,000 ewes will be necessary, while for shed lambing there should be four or five for that number of ewes. In each case the amount of help necessary depends upon the range and method of lambing. The men should have enough clothing and bedding to be out in all kinds of weather without chilling. Inform them that abusing the sheep by using the crook as a club, dogging, or otherwise, will not help you nor ease their work in the least. Truly, the man worth while in a lambing camp is "the man who can smile when everything goes dead wrong"--the man who sees many things and can find the time, the way, and the will, to better them.

Do not bed dropping ewes upon steep hillsides, where they will cast themselves during or before lambing. It may often become necessary to bed small bunches out by themselves; this gives the coyote a great chance to do his work. To keep him and other predatory animals away during the night, it is well to have firecrackers, fuse, or powder, scare-crows and lanterns on hand. To catch and chain a live coyote out upon the lambing ground has been the most effective scare-crow the writer has ever used to keep coyotes from the lambing range. As a disinfectant for bites, cuts, sores and maggots, have carbolic acid, turpentine, or some good creosote sheep dip. Marking materials are also very handy at times to mark certain ewes and lambs. The remedies given here for the treatment of ailments generally found at lambing time are not those found at a drug store twenty miles away, but, rather, those camp necessities which are most always at hand. They have proven their merit and can be relied upon.

THE DROP BAND.

Put the best man you have with your dropping ewes. He should have a cool temper, good feet, and the will to use them. Each day he should have a sheep crook and some quarter-inch rope with him. The sheep should have salt or salt feed enough to be contented. Water them once a day during dry weather; on rainy days they will feed better when not given water. In bunch lambing, where the new-born lambs are with the dropping ewes all the time, 700 ewes are enough to the band, while if you lamb by the dropping system, where you part the new-born lambs and their mothers from the dropping ewes several times each 24 hours, you may have up to 4,000 ewes in the drop band. This is not advisable where your range is closed in or short on feed or water. Upon such a range 1,500 ewes are enough to the band. Have them bedded in the warmest places at night. In nice weather let them leave the bed ground as early as possible, while in bad weather--if you have them on a good bed ground--let them remain as long as they wish. Never hold them on the bed ground in the morning by rushing them back with a dog when they are ready to leave. By so mixing the ewes you will "bum" lambs dropped during the night. On bad days put them in the warmest places, behind hills, in high brush, or any other good shelter you may have near at hand, which will keep the new-born lambs out of the wind. During warm and pleasant days let them out well in the morning hours, then hold them up a few hours on good feed, turning them toward camp and water early in the afternoon, so that the lambs dropped in the evening hours will be near camp, where they will not have to be moved.

Should your range allow you to change the bed ground each night, while the lambs are coming fast, it is best to do so. When the range is so situated that you cannot move camp each day, compelling you to move the ewes with lambs off the bed ground, so the dropping ewes may bed in the same place again, try not to move them until about the time the droppers come in around camp in the evening, say about 4 p. m. Do not move them farther than is necessary to keep them from mixing with the drop band during the night. Before the ewes bed down for the night, catch all ewes that appear sick and have not been on feed or wish to be alone, not caring to follow the herd longer. Such ewes likely have a dead lamb in them. Watch for such ewes during the day and take the lamb from them before blood poison kills the ewe. Safeguard yourself and the ewe, if convenient, by disinfecting your hands before and after doing this.

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