GENERAL CARE OF SHEEP AND LAMBS 593 



more than offset by the fact that the lambs were not so well finished 

 and hence brought a lower price. Similar results were secured in 

 trials by Coffey at the Illinois Station 26 in which western lambs were fed 

 allowances of corn ranging from 0.5 Ib. to 1.4 Ibs. per head daily, with 

 all the alfalfa hay they would eat. Gramlich obtained like results at the 

 Nebraska Station. 27 



On the other hand, in the West, where hay is usually cheap com- 

 pared with grain, the allowance of grain is often restricted. If the 

 lambs are to be sold on a local market which does not pay a premium 

 for well-finished animals this is decidedly the more profitable course to 

 follow. 28 Since lambs can not be made fat on alfalfa hay alone, many 

 western feeders feed hay alone during the first of the feeding period 

 and then add grain to finish the lambs and harden the flesh. 



903. fattening lambs in the fall. Finishing lambs for market in the 

 fall is a common practice with farmers who raise their own lambs and 

 many who buy western feeder lambs. Until cold weather sets in the 

 lambs may be grazed on rape or other pasture, with or without grain 

 in addition. Thrifty lambs placed on feed in the fall should be ready 

 for sale in December or early in January, a season when there is usually 

 a scarcity of good lambs on the market, since the grass-fed lambs have 

 been marketed and those in winter feed lots are not yet finished. 



In some sections train loads of lambs are annually distributed in Au- 

 gust among the farmers of a neighborhood and by them given the run 

 of the stubble fields from which the small grain has been harvested. 

 Often rape has been sown on the fields to increase the herbage, the seed- 

 ing not taking place until the small grain is well above ground, lest the 

 rape grow so large as to injure the grain crop. The stubble fields well 

 cleaned, the lambs may be finished by turning them into fields of stand- 

 ing corn. 



904. Fattening in the corn field. During recent years the practice of 

 fattening lambs or sheep in the corn field has increased to a marked 

 extent. "Where it is intended to follow this practice, such supplemental 

 crops as rape or soybeans should be grown in the corn. When turned 

 into standing corn in the fall, at first the lambs will clean up the other 

 vegetation, including most of the weeds. Then they will begin eating 

 the corn leaves and finally learn how to husk out the corn ears and eat 

 the grain from the cobs. During each of 2 autumns Gramlich full fed 

 one lot of lambs on shelled corn and alfalfa at the Nebraska Station 29 

 and fattened another lot in a corn field. Both years the lambs in the corn 

 field were fed 0.2 to 0.3 Ib. linseed meal per head daily to balance the 

 ration. All the alfalfa hay the lambs would eat was fed in addition 

 thruout the first trial and was supplied in the second trial after severe 

 freezing started. The lambs in the corn field gained 0.38 Ib. per head 

 daily while those fed shelled corn and alfalfa hay in the feed lot gained 



26 I11. Bui. 167. 28 N. Hex. Bui. 79. 



^Nebr. Bui. 170. ^Nebr. Buls. 167, l^O. 



