THE PRODUCTION OF " HOTHOUSE " LAMBS 



E. S. Savage and G. W. Tailby, Jr. 



The natural time for sheep to drop their lambs is in the spring. Re- 

 production in most of our domestic animals may be controlled at will by 

 the breeder, but this is not entirely true of the ewe. She will sometimes 

 breed to drop her lamb as early as October or November, but as a rule 

 she cannot be made to breed until the fall, to drop her lamb the following 

 spring. 



Restaurant keepers and hotel men, always on the lookout for rarities 

 and for meats of an unusual nature with which to tempt their guests, 

 have created a demand during the months from December to May for 

 young lambs weighing about thirty-five pounds when dressed. This 

 market has grown to its greatest proportions in Boston, New York, and 

 Washington. The lambs are sold by the carcass and not by the pound. 

 The prices in the eight seasons 1903-1904 to 1910-1911 have ranged from 

 $4 for a lamb sold late in the season to $12.50 for a prime lamb sold at 

 the top of the market. (Table i, p. 247.) 



For the purpose of studying this business as a profitable kind of sheep 

 husbandry for the New York farmer, the flock at Cornell University has 

 been managed as a hothouse-lamb flock for several seasons. The results 

 of this practice for the eight seasons 1903-1904 to 1910-1911 form the 

 basis of the discussion set forth in the following pages. The bulletin has 

 been divided into three parts: Part I deals with the care and man- 

 agement of the flock; Part II contains the record of the product during 

 the eight'seasons covered; and Part III is made up of tabulations of the 

 data. 



PART I 



care and management of the CORNELL UNIVERSITY HOTHOUSE-LAMB 



FLOCK 



The term " hothouse lamb " as here applied has probably been de- 

 rived from the fact that these lambs, born late in the fall and in the early 

 winter, are essentially an artificial product and are analogous to the prod- 

 ucts of our greenhouses or hothouses in that they are propagated out of 

 their natural season for a market willing to pay almost any price for an 

 unusual product. The term has, however, no reference to the quarters in 

 which the business is conducted, for the best success has been attained in 

 quarters that were in no way artificially heated. 



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