FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 69 



FEEDING LAMBS FOK PROFIT. 



(Owing to the unavoidable absence of Mr. A. M. Welch of Ionia, to whom this subject was 

 assiKned, Mr. N. B. Hayes of Muir was asUed to speak upon the .subject, and the following is an 

 abstract of his talk.) 



BY N. B. HAYES^ MUIR. 



The following rules for feeding lambs in Michigan will, if properly 

 carried out, give good results. 



1st. — Select good, healthy stock. 



2nd. — Do not feed any grain before putting in the barn, if your pasture 

 is good. 



3rd. — Do not leave them in your pasture field too long after the cold 

 weather comes or they will lose in weight. 



4th. — Put on full feed as soon as you can v.ith safety. A full feed is all 

 the grain they will eat up clean. 



5th. — Keep their racks and drinking tanks absolutely clean and sweet, 

 as a lamb is one of the daintiest of animals. Sweep your racks clean 

 before feeding grain. 



0th. — Have for your shepherd a quiet man and allow no strangers in 

 the barn. 



7th. — Keep your barn cool and the air pure, but cold air docs not mean 

 that it is always pure, neither is warm air necessarily impure. 



8th. — Have your lambs weigh more at night than they did in the morn- 

 ing and when they are fat, send them to market. If you wish to feed 

 longer, put in a fresh bunch. A lamb that will not get fat in ninety days 

 has no longer a place in the feeding barn. 



0th. — Give your lambs a variety of food and always keep salt within 

 easy reach. Make corn and clover hay the main feed. 



The discussion was led by Peter Voorheis, Pontiac, who spoke as fol- 

 lows : 



The feeding of lambs in Michigan is becoming an important and gener- 

 ally a profitable industry, many more being fed. than are bred and grown 

 here, and the number of farmers who make lamb feeding a permanent 

 branch of their annual operations is increasing. 



As it is with other industries, lamb feeding is not always rose-colored, 

 but taken one year with another, with Judicious management, I think it 

 will prove as profitable as any other branch of farming, although we may 

 not be able to count all the profits in dollars and cents. 



It affords an excellent home market for the hay and coarse grains raised 

 upon the farm and furnishes profitable employment during the winter 

 months. Besides it is the means of enriching and keeping up the fertility 

 of our farms, from which we can harvest larger and better crops ; for this 

 last reason it is difficult to estimate the profits resulting from a season's 

 feeding. The man about to engage in lamb feeding has many things to 

 consider if successful. First to be considered is the cost of production of 

 the finished product; upon this largely depends whether lamb feeding is 

 a success or failure. The cost of the lambs, the value of hay and grain 

 fed, the freight getting Ihem from, and the expense getting them to mar- 

 ket, as well as judicious feeding, ;ire all factors which have a bearing on 



