Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-04-10
The Care OF Merino Lambs.

The Merino eve is something like the
Texas cow-not the best of mothers.
A native of the desert. she still retains
in her blood remnant Of nomadic.
Oriental wildness An industrious, in
satiable feeder, accustomed to rove
widely in search of her living, not tran
quill and sedentary like the large uddered
English eve, she is apt to abandon her
young, Ike the ostrich, to take care Of
itself. She needs watching, she needs a
certain pressure to be brought to bear
upon her too feeble maternal instincts.
Extended experience has taught me
that Merino eve which has copious
flow Of milk is seldom failing in duty
toward her offspring. The first and
paramount duty of the shepherd, there
fore, is to pursue such preliminary
course as will best secure this dcsider-
alum. A regimen of roots, oil cake
meal, bran, fodder, clover hay, etc, will
readily suggest itself; but, valuable as
these are, they are not for the Merino
eve of the very highest Importance.
The article which, in my opionion, holds
this rank is grass, and (perhaps scarcely
secondary in value) the exercise which
is necessary to obtain it. There is no
other domestic animal which 50 eagerly
Graves and industriously searches for a
morsel of green food cropped directly
from the surface of the earth And it
is this restless, vagabondizing, gormand
izing propensity Of she Merino which
the shepherd can take advantage of and
promote, to the end that he may de-
velop the rather feeble maternal in
stincts 1t is as profoundly and uni
versally true of the lower animals, and
especially of the pregnant eve, as of
man, that they ought to work for their
living. Pasture, chat is, daily run on
sod, whether it furnishes much or next
to nothing) means work, and work means
health while roots mean cold-blooded
and wasery idleness There is nothing
else which so strengthens the frame
and enriches the system with warm. red
blood land, by necessity Of the INSOFAR
able relation between Them that of the
unborn lamb also) as frequent ramble
over the pasture lot
Even when quite sedentary, the eve
may be made to give milk with toler-
able success by judicious feeding on
oilcake meal (perhaps as good way as
any is to make it into slop with wheat
bran, tablespoonful of oilcake to a
pint Of bran per head; but unless she
has frequent and abundant exercise the
lamb will be weak, and will need close
watching if dropped on frosty night.
In the course of my experience | have
had large, rangy grade ewes-and a
grade is popularity supposed to be hard
Ter than full-blood which had been
full fed and warmly housed, drop large,
finely-formed lambs, which yet were 50
fiaccid and so neryeless that it would be
hours before they could stand alone, and
that only after the most assiduous at
tention of the shepherd, warming them
before the fire, rubbing them with wisps
of straw, etc. On the other hand.
have had full-blooded ewes, which had
royed nearly all day during the Winter
through a corn stubble, getting next to
nothing in it but the exercise, drop
lambs on so cold night that their feet
were frozen and deformed, yet they got
up, sucked and were lively as crickets
in the morning, without having received
particle of assistance from the flock
master. = Correspondent IL Country
| Gentleman