At length comes the time for weaning. In a pour country it takes place before the lambs are much more than three months old. In a more plentiful one the Iambs may be left until the fourth month is nearly or quite expired. If the pasture is good, and it is intended to sell the lambs in store 'condition, the weaning may be delayed until six months. Whichever time is selected, it is of essential consequence that the mothers and the lambs should be placed so far apart that they cannot hear the bleatings of each other. The ewes should be some what carefully looked after, and if any of them refuse to eat, they should be caught, the state of tho udder ascertained, and proper mea sures adopted.
The lambs should not be put on too stimulating food. The pasture should be fresh and sweet, but not luxuriant. It should be sufficient to maintain and somewhat increase their condition, but not to produce any dangerous determination of blood to any part.
The Diseases of Sheep.—Commcociog with the head, a parasite, having the appearance of a bladder filled with pellucid water, attacks the brain. The origin of it is connected with bad management, being scarcely known in upland pastures or in grounds that have been well drained. As the parasite grows, it presses upon the neighbouring substance of the brain, and interferes with the discharge of its func tions; the sheep becomes giddy, is frightened at any trifling or imagi nary object ; he separates himself from his companions; he commences a strange rotatory motion even while he grazes, with the head always turned towards the same side. This is the characteristic symptom, and as soon as it ie perceived the animal should he destroyed, for there is no certain cure, and many of the operations that some persons have described are cruel and inefficient.
A somewhat similar disease, but with which the hydatid has nothing to do, is Hydrocephalus, or water in the head, generally indicated by a little enlargement of the skull; a disinclination to move ; a slight stag gering in the walk; a stupidity of look, and a rapid loss of condition. This disease seldom admits of curd or palliation. If any amendment can be effected, it will be by the administration of good food, tonic medicine, and gentle aperients.
Another species of pressure on the brain is of too frequent occurrence —Apoplexy. A flock of sheep shall be in apparently as good and fine condition as the farmer can desire. They have for a eunsiderable period grazed on the most luxuriant pasture, and are apparently in the highest state of health. By and bye, one or more of them is, without any previously observed change, suddenly taken ill. He staggers, is unconscious, falls and dies, and perhaps within a quarter of an hour from the first attack. With regard to how many over-fattened sheep is this tho ease f If there is time for resorting to curative means, the jugular vein should be opened, and aperient medicine administered.
Inflammation of the brain is a frequent consequence of over-feeding.
It is ushered in by dullness and disinclination to move : but presently the eye brightens, and the animal attacks everything within his reach. If it can be manapsl, the same treatment must be adopted—bleeding, pimple, and low feeding.
Hoare is a distension of the paunch with food, and the extrication of gas from that fond. The hollow probaug should be introduced into the stomach to draw oft this gas. Four to five drachms of hartahorn in half-a-pint of water gives early relief to the animal.
There is however A disease of the liver—the Rot—far more frequently occurring in sheep than in cattle, and bearing a peculiar and more destructive character.
In the very earliest stage alone does it admit of cure. The decisive symptom, at that time, is a yellow colour of the eye that surrounds the pupil and the small veins of it, And particularly the corner of the eye, which is filled with a yellow serous fluid, and not with blood. There is no other apparent morbid appearance until it is too late to struggle with the innlady ; on the contrary, the sheep. although per haps a little duller than usual, has an evident propensity to fatten. The rot is a disease of the liver—inflammation of that organ ; and the vessels of it contain They are taken up in the food ; they find their say to the liver as their destined residence, and they create or aggravate the disease by perpetuating a state of irritability and dis organisation The rot is evidently connected with the state of the pastnre. It is confined either to wet seasons or to the feeding on ground that is moist and marshy. In the mine farm there arc fields on which no sheep can be turned without getting the rot, and there are others that never give the rot. After long continued rains it is almost sure to Appear. The disease may be communicated with extra ordinary rapidity. A flock of sheep was halted by the side of a pond for the purpose of drinking: the time which they remained there was not more than a quarter of an hour, yet two hundred of them eventu ally died rotten. The fact is, they then received into their system the germs which ultimately assumed the destructive form of those flukes in the liver which destroyed them. In the treatment of the rot little that is satisfactory can be done. Some sheep have recovered, but the decided majority perish in despite of every effort. The patients how ever may, as giving them A little chance, be moved to the driest and soundest paaturea, and there fed as liberally as possible ; but, above all, plenty of salt should be placed within the animals reach, and given to them in the way of medicine.