FEEDING SHEEP AND GOATS 327 



(1) 50 pounds corn meal, 50 pounds wheat middlings, and 5 

 pounds oil meal, 



(2) 25 pounds wheat bran, 25 pounds wheat middlings, 25 

 pounds hominy meal, 8 pounds linseed meal. 



The lambs are fed grain in a separate pen (creep), as pre- 

 viously explained. Rightly handled, hot-house lambs will make a 

 sufficiently rapid growth to be ready for the market in ten to 

 twelve weeks from birth. They will gain at least one-half pound 

 each daily during this period, and will reach a weight of about 50 

 pounds at slaughtering time. These lambs are generally marketed 

 before March, as the prices in the East, where they are mostly 

 produced, as a rule go down after this time. 



Early Spring Lambs. Fattening early spring lambs has be- 

 come an important industry in the South. By the use of Bermuda 

 grass, bur clover, and Japan clover, permanent pasture may be 

 available in this section ten months of the year, and temporary 

 winter pasture may be resorted to the remaining two months, thus 

 giving both ewes and lambs the advantage of pasturage during 

 practically the entire year; the lambs may be fed grain separately 

 and marketed during April to June, when good prices prevail. 9 In 

 many cases the ewes are fed nothing but cotton-seed meal and 

 cotton-seed hulls, the daily feed being .5 pound meal and 1.3 

 pounds hulls; another cheap southern feed is soybean hay. 



Fall Lambs. Fattening lambs are often carried until fall on 

 pasturage, with a slight feed of grain, say one-half pound per head 

 daily, and are sold at about eight months old, when they will weigh 

 in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. Eape sown in the corn or on 

 ground set apart especially for this crop will furnish excellent 

 supplemental feed for such lambs, as well as for fattening sheep in 

 general. If rape is grown by itself, it is either sown broadcast or 

 in drills 30 inches apart, the advantage of the latter method being 

 that a larger yield of green forage will be secured, and that the 

 field can be kept free from weeds (p. 138). Movable hurdles are 

 generally used where rape is pastured off by sheep or swine. 



Winter Lambs. Another method is to fatten the lambs during 

 the winter season. This is the common method practised in regions 

 where lambs are fattened for market. In the East the lambs are 

 generally kept in rectangular feeding pens with hay racks and 

 grain troughs provided with vertical slats, making an opening for 

 each lamb. They are put on full feed in about three weeks and 



9 Alabama Bulletin 148 ; Missouri Circular 25 ; Tennessee Bulletin 84. 



