434 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



would be filled for another yardful, and so on until all had been fed. 

 Now, this seemed a good way to feed; but as time went on, I was 

 always looking for some easier way, and planning how it could be 

 done, as this trough feeding was always a seven-days-a-week job. The 

 past three years I have been handling them in a little different way. 

 Also, I got to thinking that as I was buying twenty to twenty-five 

 carloads each fall, that I had better get out and try to buy direct from 

 the producer, and save commissions. As I had some western land in- 

 terests to look after I got to looking around for some outfit that was 

 raising about the number of lambs that I was feeding, and that had 

 the right kind of lambs to feed well. 



Finally, I got track of a man who had been in the sheep business 

 in Montana for thirty-five years, and was a thorough business man, and 

 a gentleman in every respect. I will never forget the way he enter- 

 tained me when I went out to buy the lambs. But I am getting off my 

 subject, and must talk about sheep feeding instead of sheep buying. 

 The past three years I have shipped my lambs direct from the 

 range, and put them in the corn field exclusively. But before turning 

 them in, I have cut two or three rows of corn around the outside of 

 the field; also two or three rows through the field, leading to the water- 

 ing places. When the lambs come to the outside of the field, or to 

 the rows cut through the field to the watering places, they will follow 

 these open spaces until they come to water, and in a few days they 

 learn where it is. 



I am very fortunate in having some small creeks in my fields farthest 

 away from the buildings. Of course these fields have some muddy places, 

 and these we watch and cover over with boards, to keep the lambs from 

 getting stuck in the mud, as lambs will often do. In the fields nearest 

 the buildings, we put in tanks, and arrange things so that the lambs 

 can not get into the tanks and get drowned, another thing which 

 lambs often do. 



For the first two or three weeks, we do not feed anything but what 

 they get in the corn field, as the leaves furnish plenty of roughness, 

 and they do not eat much corn for about ten days. Then, when the 

 leaves become scarce, we set out hay racks in the corn field, generally 

 on the spots where the soil is the poorest. As I am raising alfalfa now, 

 we feed alfalfa hay in the racks, all they will eat, using the best hay 

 we have. For, when they are on a full feed of corn, they do not seem 

 to care for any hay that is the least bit off through being exposed to 

 the weather. 



Wlien the corn begins to get a little scarce in the field, we set out 

 self-feeders. These are made on the same principle as cattle self-feeders, 

 only they are smaller, holding about sixty-five to seventy bushels of grain 

 each. We fill these feeders with corn, oats and oil meal, mixing about 

 five parts of corn, one part of oats, and one part of oil meal, but some- 

 times using more oats, if we are short on corn. Barley is also an excel- 

 lent feed for lambs, but not much is raised in our vicinity, and it is 

 too high-priced to feed at present. 



