National Geographic : 1952 Apr
552 4 The Old Gray Mare Meets a New Member of the Flock Some newborn kids weigh nine pounds at birth. Depending on pasturage and breed, they can gain as much as half a pound a day and double their weight in a month. Although baby teeth are present soon after birth, goats and sheep are slow to develop per manent incisors. Yearlings have only two; a full set appears in a four-year-old. On a grassy Alpine slope the shepherd fondles a kid destined, perhaps, to grow into a nimble rock-climber like its parents. At times, on rough inclines, the Jean Chemin flock would advance only after male goats took the lead. Occasionally these animals would perch on the roofs of mountain cabins, as if to show off before their less agile companions. <-Lamb and horse lick at coarse salt spread on a flat stone. Each sheep consumes about a pound of salt a month. These sheep take their name from the experimen tal farm at Rambouillet, France. Here, in the 18th century, the breed was developed from Merino stock imported from Spain. It yields both fine wool and good mutton. Rambouillets, imported into the United States in 1840, prevail on ranges of the West.