FLOCK HUSBANDRY IN WESTERN STATES 251 



Unless one can buy at a low price per pound it 

 is unwise to buy the emaciated ones, seeing that his 

 profit comes largely from a hoped-for advance on 

 the purchase price, and it costs money to build flesh 

 in the feedlot. 



There is, however, another range of conditions to 

 be considered when selecting our feeders. That is 

 the breeding of the sheep. Here is a pen of very 

 heavily fleeced wethers, or lambs. They will shear 

 very heavy, but they are not of the best form. They 

 have thin necks and drooping sharp shoulders and a 

 look of meekness and depression. Shall we take 

 them? In the next pen is a lot with evidence of 

 mutton blood on the Merino. They are lighter 

 fleeced, but stronger. As a rule the very heavily 

 fleeced sheep are not the best money-makers. They 

 will not eat so well nor make so good gains. Nature 

 specializes ; the food goes to flesh or it goes to fleece 

 and oil in the wool. Large, strong, moderately well- 

 wooled sheep feed best a little too much wool will 

 not hurt. It is only the exceedingly heavy fleece that 

 is to be avoided. 



Now visit the lamb pens. The wethers have run 

 very even and have required little assorting. The 

 lambs are even also, but there is with them a few 

 culls so that the buyer for the great packers usually 

 reserves the right to discard 10, 20, 30, or maybe 

 more of each lot. These are after a time thrown 

 together probably into a load of feeders. The lambs 

 are in character about what the wethers were, 

 though they have suffered more in transit and are 



