Four lamb twin sets were divided into two treatment groups for 7 days of handling at the age of 4 days. Gentled lambs were handled for 10min in the suckling pen during morning routines. Other lambs of their twins were ignored when they approached the handler. The ease of handling in each lamb was assessed once a week from 2 to 16 weeks of age using a five-scale score in five components of the weighing procedures: chase, capture, haul, restraint and release. The synthetic obedient scores based upon those scores in the components were calculated; the lower the score, the more obedient the animal. Occurrence of bleating during the procedures was counted. The synthetic obedient scores (Mean±SD) of gentled and ignored lambs were 4.4±3.0 and 9.6±4.4 (P<0.01), respectively. This result confirmed that a brief gentling of the lambs for the first 10 days after birth can improve their subsequent ease of handling. It was also indicated that the ease of handling could be emotionally improved by reducing a lamb's fear of humans and/or aversion to isolation. Gentling at age 4-10 days had, on the other hand, no apparent effect on body weight gain and the number of bleats reflecting the expression of a high level of fear.