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.