70 SHEEP FEEDING 



Ear corn. Undoubtedly ear corn is satisfactory for wethers, 

 yearlings, ewes with good mouths, and, in some cases, lambs. 

 Some grind the ear, cob and all, to a size that just breaks 

 the kernels of corn and leaves the pieces of cob about the 

 size of a pea. In order to get the corn without eating the 

 cob the sheep have to eat slowly. Others grind corn and 

 cob very fine, and although this meal can be eaten rapidly, 

 it is so lightened with the cob that unsatisfactory results 

 seldom follow. This is one of the most expensive forms in 

 which to feed corn. Shelled corn from the hand of an ex- 

 perienced and skillful feeder is generally fed with safety. If 

 it can be fed with cut hay it is very satisfactory. Corn meal, 

 unless fed with screenings, cut hay, or some other feed to 

 lighten it, is perhaps the most undesirable form of all. 



Frequency of feeding. Some feeders say that twice a day 

 is often enough to feed grain. An observant and intelligent 

 Kansas feeder gives his experience on the subject as follows : 

 :t Two carloads of Mexican lambs, weighing forty-five pounds, 

 were split into two lots and treated alike except in regard to 

 the number of times a day they were fed corn. Each group 

 received all the alfalfa hay they could eat and seven and 

 one-half bushels of shelled corn per day. One lot was 

 grained twice a day, and the other, three. At the end of a 

 seventy-day feed those that were fed twice a day weighed 

 sixty-three and a half pounds, the others seventy and a 

 half pounds. Now I feed three times a day." 



The proportion of grain to roughness. It is hard to state 

 with any degree of satisfaction just the proper proportions 

 and amounts of hay and grain that should be fed to fatten- 

 ing sheep. The average l of all the experimental data on 



1 These figures are from data compiled by C. G. Starr, an advanced 

 student in the University of Missouri, 1906. 



