250 MANAGEMENT AND FEEDING OF SHEEP 



over the food encourages them to begin eating. After 

 some of the older ones have begun to eat, the younger 

 lambs will learn from them. After they have begun to 

 take food freely, any one of the following rations should 

 give good results: (i) Bran, oats, cracked corn and oil- 

 cake in the proportions of, say, three and two parts re- 

 spectively by weight; (2) cracked corn, ground barley, 

 oats and oilcake in the proportions of three, four and 

 three parts ; (3) wheat and oats unground in about equal 

 parts. Various other grain mixtures will also answer. As 

 the ages of the lambs increase the proportion of the corn 

 fed should increase. The meal or grain fed should be re- 

 moved each time before more is added, if any is left over. 

 As soon as the young lambs will eat freely they should be 

 fed meal and other food three times a day. They will not 

 eat much fodder if fed meal thus freely, but fine clover, 

 preferably alsike, will prove helpful when made accessi- 

 ble to them. But they will make an excellent use of roots 

 pulped or dried in fine strips, such as can be obtained from 

 certain kinds of root slicers. 



The food must be fed to the lambs when it is inac- 

 cessible to the dams, and when the lambs have access to 

 it at will. A creep made in a corner of the pen in which 

 the lambs are kept, will usually answer the purpose best. 



Marketing the lambs The aim should be to secure 

 a market for the lambs before any are ready for ship- 

 ment. Those who live sufficiently near the consumer can, 

 of course, deliver the lambs dressed as needed, but when 

 not so situated it will be necessary to ship them to a dealer 

 as ordered. Under such conditions of disposal, the ad- 

 vantage of having the lambing season cover a consider- 

 able period will be apparent. Should the supply be greater 

 than the demand, the surplus lambs should be put upon 

 the general market, as they will usually sell for more at 

 such a time than they will bring if carried over until the 

 following autumn. 



The necessity for filling the orders with all reason- 



