398 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Western lambs are contented fellows; they will eat what grass they want 

 and then lie down where they stopped eating, and when their appetite 

 comes again will get up and go to eating again. You may have feed troughs 

 or your cornfield only a few yards away, but they will not go near them. 

 Drive them to your feed and stay with them for half an hour. About eight 

 or nine o'clock in the morning drive them into your cornfield, and do the 

 same thing in the evening. The more you get them to eat the better gain 

 you will have, and will be much cheaper while on grass than when cold 

 weather sets in. 



When it gets cold give them what clover hay they want; they will not eat 

 a great deal, as they will pick up roughness in your field, but it is important 

 that they should have some clover every day. In going through your corn- 

 field you will find in the early part of the season considerable corn pulled off 

 on the ground. Do not think this is wasted; the first hard frost that comes 

 they will eat it. Don't be afraid, for they will do you a good job of husking, 

 and won't dun you for four cents per bushel when it is completed. Do not 

 expect to get a gain of twelve to fifteen pounds per month on your lambs. 

 If you get seven or eight pounds gain in a month you are making money and 

 getting a good gain when you have a flock of four hundred to five 

 hundred. 



Another important matter in feeding sheep is water. Have plenty of good 

 fresh water as close to their place of feeding as possible. Many people will 

 tell you sheep don't need water. Well, just sit down and watch them when 

 they are eating shelled corn and you will, perhaps, see the same fellow go 

 and drink a dozen times. 



If you get good lambs by September 1st and sell them by December 15th 

 they should not consume over one and one half bushels of grain during this 

 time, where they have a free run of your farm, and you should have a gain 

 of close to twenty pounds; that is, a western lamb in fair flesh that will 

 weigh sixty pounds September 1st should weigh about eighty pounds by 

 December 15th. 



Go out among your lambs and get acquainted with them so they will 

 crowd around you and lookup into your face. If you don't like sheep stop 

 right where you are and turn the sheep business over to the boys and don't 

 go near them. 



If you have made a failure of raising and feeding sheep don't condemn 

 them but call the boys and see if they can't make a success of what Dad 

 failed in doing, and pay off that mortgage that has been increasing year by 

 year. 



