Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/248

Rh "They all look alike to me," said Miss Laura.

"I dare say. You are not accustomed to them. Do you know how to tell a sheep's age?"

"No, uncle."

"Here, open your mouth, Cosset," he said to the lamb that he still held. "At one year they have two teeth in the centre of the jaw. They get two teeth more every year up to five years. Then we say they have 'a full mouth.' After that you can't tell their age exactly by the teeth. Now run back to your mother," and he let the lamb go.

"Do they always know their own mothers?" asked Miss Laura.

"Usually. Sometimes a ewe will not own her lamb. In that case we tie them up in a separate stall till she recognizes it. Do you see that sheep over there by the blueberry bushes—the one with the very pointed ears?"

"Yes uncle," said Miss Laura.

"That lamb by her side is not her own. Hers died and we took its fleece and wrapped it around a twin lamb that we took from another ewe, and gave to her. She soon adopted it. Now come this way, and I'll show you our movable feeding troughs."

He got up from the log, and Miss Laura followed him to the fence. "These big troughs are for the sheep," said Mr. Wood; "and those shallow ones in the enclosure, are for the lambs. See there is just room enough for them to get under the fence. You should see the small creatures rush to them whenever we appear with their oats, and wheat, or bran, or whatever we are going to give them. If they are going to the butcher, they get corn meal and oil meal. Whatever it is, they eat it up clean. I don't believe in cramming animals. I feed them as