Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 409 



The sheep appreciate punctuality as much as does your wife. You 

 wouldn't think of coming in for dinner at eleven o'clock Monday, 

 twelve Tuesday and one Wednesday. No one ever made fat sheep 

 by stinting them feed. They will n.ot fatten on a maintenance 

 ration, and ought not to be asked to eat up all of the feed that 

 nothing else on the farm will touch. The greatest trouble we have 

 in feeding is to induce our partners and customers to feed plenty. 

 A "corncrib cross" makes the best mutton, and nothing else should 

 ever be attempted. 



What kinds of sheep are most profitable? That depends upon 

 the man, the feed, the feeding conditions, the prices and the time 

 of year. A beginner will often make a better success with wethers 

 or yearlings. Lambs require a lot of babying and sooner go to 

 pieces with a little lack of care. The yearlings and wethers will 

 take care of themselves better and can utilize more rough feed, 

 such as fodder, stalk fields and the like. If the farmer desires to 

 save labor in gathering corn by turning the sheep into the fields, 

 yearlings and wethers will do a better job than lambs. If, on the 

 other hand, he wishes to pick off the blades of the corn before they 

 dry and to get rid of the weeds and grass along the sides of the 

 field, lambs may do that job better, as they will not bother the 

 corn as soon as older sheep. However, sooner or later, usually 

 sooner, even lalnbs will begin to nibble the ears, and if the farmer 

 feeder does not watch closely, he will lose a lot of the lambs through 

 an overdose of green corn. Lambs really do the best in dry lots, 

 when the feeding begins too late to use the green blades and grass. 

 They have a disposition to wander and will not stay with the feed 

 unless more or less closely confined. When dry-lot feeding is prac- 

 ticed, some kind of shelter is almost a necessity. It need not be 

 expensive, just something to keep the sheep dry. If a sheep has a 

 dry back, no degree of cold will affect him. We have had long- 

 wooled lambs to lie on ice, melt through a bit and then freeze down 

 so that they had to be chopped loose. It never affected them at 

 all ; on the other hand, they seemed to like it and thrived on the ice. 



Sometimes yearlings are cheaper than lambs; sometimes the 

 reverse is true. If the sheep are intended for shearing, a good 

 shearing kind ought to be selected. A New Mexican lamb or year- 

 ling is the thing when high prices for mutton and quick finishing 

 is desired, but either would be a bad one for the man who wanted 

 to shear before selling. 



The internal parasites which are found in almost all native 



