274 GROWING THE LAMB 



motto by the caretaker of young lambs. The troughs and racks 

 should be carefully cleaned every day, and it is a good policy to scrub 

 them with lime-water whenever they become noticeably soiled. The 

 lime seems to make the odor about the troughs pleasant to the 

 lambs. Any surplus feed taken from the troughs and racks can be 

 fed to the ewes, or used for bedding. 



When beginning to feed little lambs, only a small amount of 

 grain should be placed in the bottom of the troughs. They are very 

 curious creatures and are inclined to do a great deal of investigat- 

 ing, so that it is not long until some lamb is nibbling at the feed. 

 They are also much given to imitation and on this account often 

 learn to eat through imitating either their mothers or the lamb that 

 first takes to the feed. The writer has induced lambs to start eating 

 grain by quietly offering it to them from his hand. Their curiosity 

 caused them to sniff about the hand with the result that they took 

 to the feed. Scattering a little sugar over the grain may serve to 

 get the lambs started on grain. It is better to give them about the 

 amount of feed they will clean up in a day than to place a large 

 quantity before them to nose over and spoil. The ewes will eat the 

 feed the lambs refuse unless it is mixed with dung, but it is not as 

 palatable as fresh feed. 



After lambs learn to eat they increase rapidly in their power to 

 consume feed. Whether or not they should be given all they want 

 depends on the end in view. If they are to be marketed as fat lambs, 

 they should be liberally fed with grain until they are of marketable 

 weight and condition. If all of them are to be marketed, a large 

 part of the grain ration should be carbonaceous in nature, like corn, 

 but if a number of the ewe lambs are to be retained for breeding 

 purposes, not more than half of the grain mixture should be corn, 

 the other half consisting of oats and possibly bran and oil meal. 



Amount of Feed Consumed by Lambs. At first the lamb eats 

 only a very little, but by the time it has been nibbling at grain for 

 three or four weeks it will be eating about one-fourth pound daily. 

 If it is confined in the dry lot all the while and is permitted to have 

 about all the grain it wants it will consume about three-fourths of a 

 pound of grain daily in the seventh week after it has begun to eat. 

 When it is on grass or forage it will not eat more than half as much 

 grain as a lamb of the same age confined to the dry lot. 



Green Feed Before Grass Season. Eye, old clover, and grass 

 pastured before the beginning of the grazing season are good for 



