SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 433 



We did this so that they would not eat too much pure salt, as sheep 

 will eat salt very greedily, and lamhs will sometimes die from eating it 

 too greedily. By scattering it on the gopher mounds, they would get 

 a lot of dirt mixed with the salt, and it would satisfy their appetite 

 for it just as quickly as if they were getting pure salt. I would like 

 to say that nice, clean soil that is not too sandy or gravelly, is one of 

 the best things to keep the stomach of any fami animal s^^eet, when on 

 a full feed of grain. And I' always mix from one-half to one-third soil 

 with salt for at least three weeks after first getting my lambs in the 

 fall. 



Well, we ran these yearlings on this hay land and corn field until 

 the first of December. As we were about through picking, and the sheep 

 seemed to be eating lots of corn by this time, I left about five acres 

 of corn, which they had about half picked, and we began feeding some 

 shelled corn and oats in troughs in the yard night and morning, to get 

 them used to the troughs. We also fed some clover hay. By the time 

 the corn was all out of the field, we had them on a good feed in the 

 yard; but we never allowed them to have the corn in the troughs for 

 more than ten or fifteen minutes at each time. If they did not eat it 

 up clean in that time, we took it all out of the troughs. 



I shipped these yearlings either just before or just after Christmas 

 — I can't remember which — but they weighed 96 pounds each in Chi- 

 cago, and I had only lost two head out of the 299. I thought I was 

 pretty lucky, and I commenced to think I would be able to try lambs 

 the next year. 



The next two or three years, I put in my order for choice 60-pound 

 feeding lambs, at Omaha, always having them dipped. I handled these 

 lambs in the same way as I had handled the yearlings, only I some- 

 times had oats stubble that had been seeded to clover, and had a rank 

 growth of clover on it. When this was the case, I would yard the 

 lambs at night, and keep them shut in in the morning until all dew or 

 white frost was off the clover. We had very good luck in this way. 

 But I found it was very hard on the clover. So I would shut them 

 off the clover as soon as I saw' they were eating it down closely, and 

 keep them in the corn field entirely. When we were nearly done 

 picking corn, we would commence to feed in troughs. 



As r was increasing the number on feed each year, we now had to 

 have a feeding yard and other yards that would accommodate about 500 

 head in each yard, these yards all opening into the feeding yard. In 

 this way, we would have the feed yard empty, and drive in with a 

 wagon and put in the amount of grain for 500' head, as we had trough 

 room for only that many of them to eat at once. As soon as the grain 

 was in the trough, we would open the gate from one yard, and in 

 about thirty seconds, 500 head of lambs would all be eating. 



While these were eating the grain, we would have another team 

 ready with the hay, and fill the hay racks while the lambs were out. 

 By the time the hay was in the racks, the lambs would be done eating 

 grain, and ready to be put back in their yard. Again the feed troughs 



