SHEEP 351 



FATTENING LAMBS AND WETHERS IN WINTER. 



When wethers and lambs are bought at the same price per pound 

 and are fattened under similar conditions, the lambs are likely to 

 bring considerably more profit. This increased profit is likely to 

 arise first, from the greater relative advance at which the lambs will 

 probably be sold, and second, from the greater relative gains which 

 the lambs are likely to make on a given amount of food. And this 

 profit may be expected to increase with the decrease in the difference 

 between the weight of the wethers and lambs respectively at the time 

 of purchase, because of the influence which weight at the beginning 

 of an experiment exercises upon any advance made in mutton values. 

 (Minn. B. 59, 69.) 



Shearing Wether Lambs Before Fattening Them. When 

 lambs are being fattened early in the fall or in preparing them for 

 winter fattening it is a profitable practice to shear them before the 

 fattening begins. Shearing the wether lambs before fattening them 

 in January proves to be of slight advantage. The wethers that 

 were shorn made 7 pounds more gain than those left unshorn, but 

 the cost of gain was $4.44 per 100 pounds in comparison with $4.17 

 in the case of those that were not shorn. One advantage noted was 

 the rapid fattening of the shorn wethers after shearing and during 

 the first half, or first eight weeks, of the feeding period. 



It was found decidedly beneficial to shear lambs in October 

 before fattening them. Five wethers were shorn October 14 and fed 

 for fifteen weeks against another lot of 5 left unshorn. The shorn 

 lot gained 225.5 pounds and the unshorn 210.5 pounds, or an aver- 

 age weekly gain per head of 3 pounds for the shorn and 2.8 pounds 

 for the unshorn. The cost of 100 pounds of gain was $6.11 with the 

 shorn lot and $6.67 with the unshorn. 



Fattening Wether Lambs to Maturity. It is the common prac- 

 tice on many farms to withhold grain from the lambs for a time 

 before and after weaning, in the belief that they will make quicker 

 and more profitable gains while being fattened later. The evidence 

 is clear that the greatest and most profitable gain is made in the 

 younger days of the lamb, and that the feeding of such food as bran, 

 linseed meal, and oats before weaning and a small quantity of oats 

 after weaning not only pays in direct profit if the lambs are sold at 

 any of these times, but the fattening later is none the less profitable 

 because of this management. 



Feeding grain before weaning has produced an average of 61 

 cents per head more profit at weaning time than where no grain was 

 fed. With lambs sold in the fall, feeding grain both before and after 

 weaning produced an average of 34 cents per head more profit than 

 where no grain was fed. 



One of the most profitable features of grain feeding lambs pre- 

 vious to fattening was observed to be the earlier maturity of those 

 that had had grain from birth. For instance, in one trial the lambs 

 fed grain from birth attained an average weight of 113 pounds seven 

 weeks earlier than those that had had no grain previous to fattening, 



