662 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



It will not do for him to assume that pasture which is ideal for 

 cattle will be ideal for sheep. The fact is that while cattle usually do 

 well on such big grass as usually grows in the corn and grass states, 

 sheep don't do well on that grass. In fact, the man who pastures his 

 sheep on big grass a year like this will be very likely to get quite sick 

 of the sheep business on account of the stomach worm. 



Any man who thinks of going into sheep needs to heed the motto 

 "Change of pasture is good for sheep." The man who forgets this will 

 in all probability have trouble and be disgusted with the business. 

 Why IS change of pasture good for sheep? The great enemy of the 

 sheep is not the wolf or the dog, nor even free trade, but internal para- 

 sites — tape worm, the worm which causes the nodular disease, but worst 

 of all the round stomach worm. This last may be found in every flock 

 of sheep, and particularly in the mutton breeds. If sheep are pastured 

 more than one year on any one pasture, this pasture is likely to become 

 infected; and if he uses this as sheep pasture from year to year it is 

 quite certain that in years when grass has a rank growth on account 

 of an unusual amount of moisture, that he will lose a large per cent 

 of his lambs from this disease, and will spend a good deal of his time 

 dosing them with gasoline and sweet milk or creosote and sweet milk, 

 and will sometimes wonder which is the more expensive in the end, 

 the remedy or the disease. 



The worms, however, can be avoided largely by limiting his flock 

 to one hundred or less on the quarter section farm, by fencing his 

 farm sheep-tight, so that he can use the entire farm, by having his 

 lambs come in February or March, and feeding oats as soon as ihey 

 will eat them, which is when they are two or three weeks old, and oats 

 and corn afterwards, then selling his lambs in June, and keeping his 

 stock through on short pasture during the summer season. By "short" 

 pasture we don't mean poor pasture, but short grass. 



Handled in this way a small flock of sheep will pay 100 per cent a 

 year very easily at present prices. By this we mean that if twenty- 

 five sheep and a buck cost the owner a hundred and fifty dollars he 

 can sell a hundred and fifty dollars' worth of wool and lambs in twelve 

 months and have his original stock remaining. Whatever you do, 

 don't let your flock increase faster than the capacity of your farm and 

 your own ability to handle them properly. 



