590 FEEDS AND FEEDING 



deprived of food and water for 16 hours. This gasoline treatment 

 should be repeated each day for 3 days. With weak lambs the dose 

 may be given on alternate days. 



The safest plan, where sheep are infested with stomach worms, is to 

 drench them at the beginning of the pasture season and then move them 

 to clean pasture every 2 weeks during the summer. Annual pastures, as 

 rape, clover seeding, etc., are well adapted to this system, for it re- 

 quires several separate, clean pasture lots. Where permanent pastures 

 are used for sheep, this plan is often difficult to follow, and it must then 

 be modified. 



The first essential is to protect the lambs, as infestation with stom- 

 ach worms affects them much more seriously than older sheep. Thoroly 

 drenching the ewes in the spring with some vermifuge will remove most 

 of the worms and aid in keeping the lambs free from them. Immediate- 

 ly after weaning, the lambs should always be turned on fresh, clean 

 pasture, on which no sheep have grazed previously that season. In a 

 plan of rotating pastures so as to prevent serious trouble from stomach 

 worms, advantage should be taken of the uninfested grazing furnished 

 by stubble fields, aftermath in meadows, and corn fields. In the north- 

 ern states worm-free and infested sheep may graze together from the 

 last of September until May with but little danger. Well-fed, thrifty 

 sheep and lambs can resist parasites much better than those getting 

 poor feed and care. 



II. HINTS ON FATTENING SHEEP 



898. Fattening western lambs. Practically none of the lambs raised 

 on the western ranges are sufficiently well fleshed for slaughter at the 

 end of the grazing season. Therefore they are commonly sold as feeders 

 and then fattened for market at points where concentrates are 

 cheaper than in the range districts. At one time most of the western 

 lambs were fattened by large operators who each fed thousands of lambs 

 a year. This practice, however, reached its zenith years ago, when corn 

 and wheat screenings ruled low in price, and the large operator had 

 little competition from the ranchman and farmer in finishing range 

 lambs for the market. Now conditions have changed. With the in- 

 creases in the prices of feed, of labor, and of feeder lambs from the 

 ranges, the fattening of western lambs has passed chiefly into the hands 

 of farmers who each fatten one or more carloads. Most fortunately for 

 a conservative agriculture, the large operator, who often received no 

 benefit from the great accumulation of rich manure in the feed lot, has 

 usually been unable to compete with the farmer, who raises most of 

 his feed and uses the manure to enrich his land. Prudent farmers 

 rightly hold that enough fertility is returned to their land thru the feed 

 lot to pay the entire labor cost of feeding. 



In selecting lambs for feeding, one should chose those which will make 

 economical gains and develop into prime or choice mutton lambs. They 



