Zurgada Antonova, How to Make Ewes Accept Their Newborn

Abstract

Sometimes ewes reject their new-born. Zurgada’s paternal uncle had the following method to make such ewes accept their lambs. He used to take saliva from the lamb and hand it over to its mother while saying the following: ‘Pog-pog, why are you rejecting your offspring? How will you walk in the spring wind? It is your lamb. Even birds that do not have udders feed their chicks’. After this, the ewe would accept its lamb.