264 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



the vines and eat more or less of the forage. The 

 fields are usually fenced and the lambs turned loose, 

 from 500 to 2,000 in a lot. At night they are usually 

 corralled to protect them from coyotes. 



When the weather remains dry there is no great 

 waste of peas by feeding in this manner. With 

 snow, however, there is danger that the forage will 

 become greatly damaged and more or less of the 

 peas lost. 



It is not an economical way to utilize peas at best 

 because the lambs travel too much in gathering 

 them and by their restlessness fail to put on flesh 

 as they would were they confined to a small feed- 

 lot. The advantage of feeding the peas where they 

 grow is, however, twofold. There is saved all the 

 labor of harvesting them and the manure is scat- 

 tered as it is made and thus the field is enriched. 

 Where labor is scarce and dear as it often is in Colo- 

 rado these are important considerations. 



There is another way that makes a fair com- 

 promise between harvesting and feeding the peas 

 in a yard and letting them lie where they grow, that 

 is to cut them with a mower and cock them up in 

 rather large cocks, then letting the lambs run to 

 them. It would seem that this was a good scheme, 

 especially if the lambs have a shepherd with a dog 

 so that they may be kept from running over the 

 whole field at one time. There would be practically 

 no waste in feeding by this plan, especially as pigs 

 would follow the lambs and pick up what they left 

 uneaten. 



