266 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



corrals, when the feed in the field begins to get short, where they 

 will have access to all the wheat and barley they will eat at night, 

 and, in fact, they have access to the self-feeders at all times. But 

 they get all their roughage in the field, and will continue to glean 

 pea -grain until they finally will clean up the field, and at the same 

 time will continue to make good gains and a good finish. Third, 

 by keeping a herder with them, preventing them from running over 

 the field, and allowing them to advance a little each day onto fresh 

 feed. In this way they will graze back and forth over that part 

 of the field fed over and clean it up, and they will also have all 

 the feed they will eat all of the time, and make the usual gains, 

 and at the same time the field will be cleaned up without waste 

 when they are through with it. 



"In all cases the lambs are corralled at night. The corrals 

 are usually made of movable lock board panels, and the corral 

 moved onto fresh ground once a week. 



"Of the three methods above mentioned, the last is the one 

 so far generally used, and in most cases is to be preferred when 

 good herders can be obtained. But the trouble is to obtain good 

 herders, for there is a great difference in the herding, and in the 

 results thereby obtained. It would almost seem as if some herders 

 hypnotized the lambs, for they will quiet down at once, stop travel- 

 ing or running over the field, feed quietly and lie down, and con- 

 sequently will make the best possible gains. With other herders, 

 they will be nervous and restless, traveling over the field, and do 

 not fill up quickly and lie down; and while they have all they will 

 eat and apparently eat as much, they do not make as good gains. 



"The difference in herders was illustrated last year in my 

 own experience with two bunches of lambs of about 2,000 each. 

 The lambs were of the same grade (the original herd cut in two), 

 and the feed the same; yet one bunch made in a given time an 

 average gain of four pounds more than the other. 



"Some feeders will try the plan this year. of cutting their 

 land up into 40 to 53-acre lots, and of putting smaller bunches 

 of lambs 400 to 600 in a lot, and dispensing with herders alto- 

 gether, and of either using movable fences of some sort, so as to 

 give them access to fresh feed as needed, or else allow them to 

 run at will in the lot as long as advisable, and then turn them into 

 fresh fields, and clean up after them with stock sheep or hogs and 

 cattle. But, without doubt, experience will finally solve in some 

 way all the difficulties which develop in this method of feeding. 



"It would naturally be supposed that there would be great 

 waste of feed in this method of feeding lambs ; that, as the lambs 

 run over the feed and thresh out most of the pea grain, there 

 would be a large part of it they would never get, and which would 

 not be recovered in any way. And experienced sheep feeders (who 

 know how disdainfully a lamb, when fed in a corral, will refuse 



