"When the lambs are weaned great attention is necessary to prevent them from wasting away in their longing for the dam: they should be tempted to eat by giving them appetizing food, and care should be taken that they do not suffer from cold or heat. When at last they have forgotten the taste of milk and no longer yearn for the dam, they may be driven out with the flock.
"A ram lamb should not be altered until he is five months old, nor yet in very hot or very cold weather. Those which you wish to keep for rams should be chosen as far as possible from dams who are in the habit of having twin lambs.
"Most of these recommendations apply equally to those fine wool sheep which are called pellitae, because they are jacketed with skins, as is done at Tarentum and in Attica, to protect their wool from fouling, for by this precaution the fleece is kept in better plight for dyeing, washing or cleaning. Greater diligence is required to keep clean the folds and stables of such sheep than is necessary for the ordinary breeds: so they are paved with stone to the end that no urine may stand anywhere in the stable.
"Sheep eat whatever is put before them—fig leaves, marc, even straw. Bran should be fed to them in moderation, lest they eat either too much or too little of it, in either of which cases it is bad for the digestion, but clover and alfalfa agree with them best and make both fat and milk with the utmost facility.
"So far as concerns the health of the flock, there are many things I might add, but, as Scrofa has said, the flock master keeps his prescriptions written down in a book and carries with him what he needs in the way of physic.
"It remains to speak of the number of sheep in a flock. Some make this more, some less, for there is no natural limit. In Epirus almost all of us have a rule not to allow more than one hundred short wool sheep or fifty fine wool jacketed sheep to a shepherd."
Of goats
III. As Atticus stopped, Cossinius took him up. "Come, my dear Faustulus," he cried, "you have bleated long enough. Take now from me, as from a late born Homeric Melanthius,[123] a small offering from my flock of goats, and at the same time learn a lesson in brevity. He who wishes to form a flock of goats should consider in choosing them: first of all that they are of an age capable of breeding, and that for some time to come, for a tiro is more useful for that purpose than a veteran. As to conformation, see to it that they are strong and large, with a smooth body and thick coat: but beware of the short haired goat, for there are both kinds. The she goat should have two excrescences, like little teats, hanging under the muzzle: those which have them are fecund:[124] the larger the udder the more milk and butter fat she will yield. The qualities of a buck are that his coat should be largely white: his crest and neck short and his gullet long. You will have a better flock if you buy at one time goats which have been accustomed to run together, rather than by putting together a lot of goats picked up here and there.
"Concerning breeding, I refer to what Atticus has said about sheep, with this difference: that while you select a breed of sheep which are slow of foot, because they are of quieter disposition, all goats are as excitable as they are agile. Of, this last characteristic Cato records in his book Origines: 'In the mountains of Socrate and Fiscellus there are wild goats which leap from rock to rock a distance of more than sixty feet.' For as the sheep which we feed are sprung from wild sheep, so the goats which we herd are sprung from wild goats: and it is from them that the island of Caprasia, near the coast of Italy, gets its name.
"As it is recognized that the best breed of goats is one which bears two kids at a birth, breeding bucks are chosen from such a race whenever possible. Some fanciers even take the trouble to import bucks from the island of Melia, where are bred what are considered the largest and most beautiful specimens of the race.