第43章 CHAPTER X(3)

Startle them,frighten them,disturb their peace;do so again and again,at the same spot,from the very first day.Let them always have peace on their own run,and none anywhere off it.In a month or two you will find the sheep begin to understand your meaning,and it will then be very easy work to keep them within bounds.If,however,you suffer them to have half an hour now and then on the forbidden territory,they will be constantly making for it.The chances are that the feed is good on or about the boundary,and they will be seduced by this to cross,and go on and on till they are quite beyond your control.

You will have burnt a large patch of feed on the outset.Burn it in early spring,on a day when rain appears to be at hand.It is dangerous to burn too much at once:a large fire may run farther than you wish,and,being no respecter of imaginary boundaries,will cross on to your neighbour's run without compunction and without regard to his sheep,and then heavy damages will be brought against you.Burn,however,you must;so do it carefully.Light one strip first,and keep putting it out by beating it with leafy branches,This will form a fireproof boundary between you and your neighbour.

Burnt feed means contented and well-conditioned sheep.The delicately green and juicy grass which springs up after burning is far better for sheep than the rank and dry growth of summer after it has been withered by the winter's frosts.Your sheep will not ramble,for if they have plenty of burnt pasture they are contented where they are.They feed in the morning,bunch themselves together in clusters during the heat of the day,and feed again at night.

Moreover,on burnt pasture,no fire can come down upon you from your neighbour so as to hurt your sheep.

The day will come when you will have no more occasion for burning,when your run will be fully stocked,and the sheep will keep your feed so closely cropped that it will do without it.It is certainly a mortification to see volumes of smoke rising into the air,and to know that all that smoke might have been wool,and might have been sold by you for 2s.a pound in England.You will think it great waste,and regret that you have not more sheep to eat it.However,that will come to pass in time;and meanwhile,if you have not mouths enough upon your run to make wool of it,you must burn it off and make smoke of it instead.There is sure to be a good deal of rough scrub and brushwood on the run,which is better destroyed,and which sheep would not touch;therefore,for the ultimate value of your run,it is as well or better that it should be fired than fed off.

The very first work to be done after your arrival will be to make a yard for your sheep.Make this large enough to hold five or six times as many sheep as you possess at first.It may be square in shape.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 100sheep 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.