590 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



per fleece and sell the lambs, mostly in October. After reserving the best 

 ewe lambs, get an average of from* 70 to 80 pounds without any grain. 



I generally average from 100 to 125 per cent of an increase in the 

 flock of breeding sheep. I never intend to let the ewe lambs mate the 

 first year, as I think it has a tendency to stunt them and they seldom 

 produce as good a lamb as an older sheep. I do not shear my flock as 

 •early as a great many do for I don't believe it is right to take their coat 

 ofl: when I want my overcoat on and the wool will weigh better and shear 

 easier to let the oil rise before shearing. 



Grass is my principal feed; I never feed the old sheep when the grass 

 is good. My general winter feed is shock corn and fodder. Toward 

 spring I like to give some hay, and prefer clover if I have it. I think our 

 agricultural papers malve more fuss about giving our sheep corn than 

 there is any use in. I usually give about one ear per head a day to the 

 old sheep and a little more to the lambs. I believe it would be profitable 

 to give the lambs some grain while with their mothers, but have never 

 practiced it. 



Address by J. F. H. Taylor, before Mahaska County Farmers' Institute. 



This subject is interesting to me, and the two gentlemen who just 

 preceded me have certainly given you good ideas on handling sheep in a 

 small way. My business is more buying and selling than producing — 

 buying and shipping. I was just thinking, while our brothers were talk- 

 ing about the hog and the steer, I was just thinking that our sheep would 

 remove the mortgage from the farm a great deal quicker than both 

 of them combined. I have been accustomed to have the care of a small 

 flock of sheep since I was a small boy; ever since I was able to carry an 

 empty basket I have had the care of sheep, and as a matter of course, 

 In doing the kind of work we do, we form a habit of liking, or should 

 like it, and we should like that in which there is the most dollars and 

 cents to be derived from. 



I will give a few illustrations of what I know to be facts, and a 

 little idea of what the sheep are making at the present time. I will 

 begin back eight or ten years ago when wool was worth from ten to fifteen 

 cents a pound, and sheep were selling at two cents and two and one-half 

 cents a pound, and lambs were selling at three or four cents a pound. 

 Men who owned sheep at that time were satisfied at the profit they were 

 getting out of it, while at the present time lambs at home are worth 

 five and a half to six cents, and yearlings are worth from $4.75 to $5.75 

 at home, and the old ones, as you are aware, are classed differently on 

 the market, and the older type are running from four or five cents per 

 pound, which you will see readily is double, or about double the price we 

 used to get. While we were getting at that time for wool from ten to 

 fifteen cents per pound, at the present time our wool is worth on the 

 h'ome market from twenty-five to twenty-seven cents per pound, and in 

 my opinion sheep on the farm is the most profitable animal we can keep, 

 But this will depend, however, to some extent upon the 'location of the 

 farm. Our low bottom lands are not well adapted to sheep industry. 



