Place
two good large gates at the middle of either of the two opposite sides.
This will be sufficient at first, but, as your flocks increase, a
somewhat more complicated arrangement will be desirable.
The sheep, we will suppose, are to be thoroughly overhauled. You wish,
for some reason, to inspect their case fully yourself, or you must tail
your lambs, in which case every lamb has to be caught, and you will cut
its tail off, and ear-mark it with your own earmark; or, again, you will
see fit to draft out all the lambs that are ready for weaning; or you
may wish to cull the mob, and sell off the worst-woolled sheep; or your
neighbour's sheep may have joined with yours; or for many other reasons
it is necessary that your flock should be closely examined. Without
good yards it is impossible to do this well - they are an essential of
the highest importance.
Select, then, a site as dry and stony as possible (for your sheep will
have to be put into the yard over night), and at daylight in the morning
set to work.
Fill the yard B with sheep from the big yard A. The yard B we will
suppose to hold about 600. Fill C from B: C shall hold about 100.
When the sheep are in that small yard C (which is called the drafting-
yard), you can overhaul them, and your men can catch the lambs and hold
them up to you over the rail of the yard to ear-mark and tail. There
being but 100 sheep in the yard, you can easily run your eye over them.
Should you be drafting out sheep or taking your rams out, let the sheep
which you are taking out be let into the yards D and E. Or, it may be,
you are drafting two different sorts of sheep at once; then there will
be two yards in which to put them. When you have done with the small
mob, let it out into the yard F, taking the tally of the sheep as they
pass through the gate. This gate, therefore, must be a small one, so as
not to admit more than one or two at a time. It would be tedious work
filling the small yard C from the big one A; for in that large space the
sheep will run about, and it will take you some few minutes every time.
From the smaller yard B, however, C will easily be filled. Among the
other great advantages of good yards, there is none greater than the
time saved. This is of the highest importance, for the ewes will be
hungry, and their lambs will have sucked them dry; and then, as soon as
they are turned out of the yards, the mothers will race off after feed,
and the lambs, being weak, will lag behind; and the Merino ewe being a
bad mother, the two may never meet again, and the lamb will die.
Therefore it is essential to begin work of this sort early in the
morning, and to have yards so constructed as to cause as little loss of
time as possible. I will not say that the plan given above is the very
best that could be devised, but it is common out here, and answers all
practical purposes. The weakest point is in the approach to B from A.
As soon as you have done with the mob, let them out. They will race off
helter-skelter to feed, and soon be spread out in an ever-widening fan-
like shape. Therefore have someone stationed a good way off to check
their first burst, and stay them from going too far and leaving their
lambs; after a while, as you sit, telescope in hand, you will see the
ewes come bleating back to the yards for their lambs. They have
satisfied the first cravings of their hunger, and their motherly
feelings are beginning to return. Now, if the sheep have not been kept
a little together, the lambs may have gone off after the ewes, and some
few will then be pretty certain never to find their mothers again. It
is rather a pretty sight to sit on a bank and watch the ewes coming
back. There is sure to be a mob of a good many lambs sticking near the
yards, and ewe after ewe will come back and rush up affectionately to
one lamb after another. A good few will try to palm themselves off upon
her. If she is young and foolish, she will be for a short time in
doubt; if she is older and wiser, she will butt away the little
impostors with her head; but they are very importunate, and will stick
to her for a long while. At last, however, she finds her true child,
and is comforted. She kisses its nose and tail with the most
affectionate fondness, and soon the lost lamb is seen helping himself
lustily, and frolicking with his tail in the height of his contentment.
I have known, however, many cunning lambs make a practice of thieving
from the more inexperienced ewes, though they have mothers of their own;
and I remember one very beautiful and favourite lamb of mine, who, to my
great sorrow, lost its mother, but kept itself alive in this manner, and
throve and grew up to be a splendid sheep by mere roguery. Such a case
is an exception, not a rule.
You may perhaps wonder how you are to know that your sheep are all
right, and that none get away. You cannot be QUITE CERTAIN of this.
You may be pretty sure, however, for you will soon have a large number
of sheep with whom you are personally acquainted, and who have, from
time to time, forced themselves upon your attention either by peculiar
beauty or peculiar ugliness, or by having certain marks upon them.
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