ANIMAL HUSBANDRY 



Investigations in animal hnsbandry have been conducted along five 

 different lines : (1) Sheep breeding experiments ; (2) feeding Tepary 

 beans to hogs; (3) supplmenting alfalfa hay for milk production; (4) 

 Ostrich investigations; and (5) study of the variovis systems of live- 

 stock farming in Arizona. 



she;ep investigations 



The flock of sheep located in Salt River Valley has undergone 

 considerable improvement this past year. All animals that were of 

 inferior type or unsatisfactory in mutton, v^ool, or other qualities were 

 discarded. The present flock has been materially decreased in numbers. 



Wool study: The weights of wool of the various crosses of sheep 

 have been studied during the past year. Instead of averaging the entire 

 number of clips of wool of the different crosses as has been done in 

 previous reports, the different clips of wool were compared with each 

 other and with those of other crosses. This was necessary, for the 

 Tunis-Native and the Hampshire-Tunis-Native crosses have many more 

 old sheep than any other. It has been observed that the first clip is 

 usually very light while the second and third clips are much heavier. 

 Some of the crosses give their heaviest fleece at two years of age, while 

 others give their heaviest clip at three yars. Still others have seemingly 

 increased in weight of wool as they grew older. The sheep of some of 

 the crosses have had three clips ; and in comparing their wool only the 

 first three clips were taken into consideration. Table XI shows the 

 weights of wool according to clips of the various crosses for a period 

 of six years. 



The first clip averages the lightest of all, while the weight of 

 wool gradually increases until the fourth and fifth clips which are 

 slightly lower, but the sixth clip shows a marked increase over the 

 others. It should be noted that before the sixth clip was taken most 



