FATTENING RANGE LAMBS. 



25 



LOSS OF LAMBS. 



The loss of lambs during- the progress of the experiment was 

 :ry light only one of the 176 head on experiment being 1 lost. Dur- 

 the first month after the lambs arrived at the farm the losses 

 :re rather heavy. The entire loss from the time the 361 lambs 

 ire received at the farm on November 6, until the time of the last 

 lipment was 14 hoad. There is likely to be a heavier loss with 

 mng-, small lambs just weaned than with older, strong-er ones, as 

 the weaning, shipping- and complete chang-e of climate and condi- 

 tions in g-eneral subject the lambs to very, trying- circumstances. 

 After these lambs became accustomed to their new environment 

 the loss was very small, indicating- that the sudden change of con- 

 ditions was probably responsible for the loss at first. As was 

 stated in Bulletin 179, the loss of lambs in 1905-06 was very light 

 probably due in some measure at least to their being: larger and 

 stronger than the lambs fed in 1906-07, and being allowed a longer 

 run on grass. 



CONSUMPTION OF ROUGHAGE. 



TABLE XI Roughage. 



The experiment previously conducted indicated that the use of 

 a nitrogenous concentrate or of the stock food slig-htly increased the 

 consumption of roughage. Inasmuch as each lot of lambs received, 

 in the experiment of 1905-06, the same amount of roughag-e, it was 

 not possible to secure as conclusive data on this point as were de- 

 sired. On this account, as previously stated, it was thought advisable 

 to feed the lambs in each lot in this test all the hay they would eat. 

 The data presented in Table XI support the data secured in the first 

 experiment. The increased roughage consumption when oilmeal 

 was fed was in either case very small in this test slightly over 3.4 

 percent in the first test only 2.39 percent. The increase in rough- 

 age consumption when the stock food was fed was almost exactly 

 the same as with oilmeal in 1906-07 and only slightly less in 1905-06. 

 It is not certain that any practical use can be made of this fact, 

 esoecially since the amount of food actually consumed per hundred 

 pounds gain in live weight was greater in both instances than when 

 a grain ration of corn alone was fed. 



