General Care of Sheep. 531 



all the lambs will eat. When a few weeks old cracked corn is 

 added to the ration, and later barley and a few oats. Some clover 

 hay, cut when in fall bloom and kept in a special mow, serves 

 for roughage. Every effort is made to induce the young things 

 to not only eat, but to eat a large quantity, and keep eating. 

 Weak lambs are fed new milk from a teapot with a rubber cot, hav- 

 ing a hole punctured in the end of it, placed on the spout. Ewes 

 bereft of their lambs through sale are given a lamb from twins 

 to raise. To force the ewe to own a lamb, a movable partition 

 is used to separate her and the lamb from the flock, and the lamb 

 is helped to suck twenty times a day until owned by its foster- 

 mother. Water weakly tinctured with the essence of pepper- 

 mint sprinkled over the nose of the ewe and over the lamb 

 frequently helps to effect an adoption. Through this system of 

 forcing the best lambs weigh from 40 to 47 pounds alive at six 

 weeks, and as much as 34 pounds dressed. These lambs are 

 dressed in a special manner, the carcass being covered with white 

 muslin and sewed up in burlap. To be profitable they should 

 bring five dollars or more per head. This specialty in sheep 

 husbandry can only be profitably carried on by experts who have 

 gained experience through patient, well-directed effort and who 

 have markets not too far distant that will pay the high prices 

 such products must command. 



IV. Fattening Plains Sheep. 



821. Fattening in the corn belt. Anew industry has sprung up 

 in the West within the last decade that of fattening "Plains" 

 sheep in the corn-growing centers. In the winter of 1889 and 

 1890, l 625,000 head of plains sheep were fattened in the state of 

 Nebraska alone, the great corn crop of that year forming the basis 

 of operations. Briefly, the system is as follows: During the sum- 

 mer, Plains sheep purchased in New Mexico, Colorado, or other 

 Western ranges, are gradually moved eastward, grazing as they 

 go. Often they are dipped en route to destroy or make sure there 

 is no scab, the bane of the feeder under this system. By the time 

 the corn is ripe the sheep have reached some point where it is for 



1 Special Report on the Sheep Industry, U. S. Dept. of Agr., pp. 845-94. 



