4 BULLETIN 573, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



TABLE I. Live stock on farms on the ^finidoka Reclamation Project in 1916. 



All kinds of live stock are proving profitable on the project, and 

 sheep are becoming particularly popular. The high altitude and the 

 dry climate are well adapted to the production of sheep, which in 

 this section have been remarkably free from internal parasites and 

 diseases. Sheep have been found useful in checking the growth of 

 weeds on ditch banks and in fence rows, and they are also relatively 

 easy to care for, especially during the irrigation season when the 

 farmers are busy with other work. 



HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS OF THE SHEEP INDUSTRY ON THE 



MINIDOKA PROJECT. 



RELATIONSHIP OF FARM SHEEP PRODUCTION TO THE RANGE SHEEP INDUSTRY. 



In the early years of the development of the Minidoka project 

 sheep were kept on very few farms. As the project produced large 

 quantities of alfalfa hay and was situated in the midst of extensive 

 grazing areas, it soon became the winter feeding ground of large 

 numbers of range stock, chiefly sheep. The number of sheep win- 

 tered on the project during recent years has varied from 60,000 to 

 195,000. Permanent headquarters for range sheepmen have been 

 established on a number of farms, where lambing sheds have been 

 built and large quantities of hay fed. The range sheep are used 

 extensively in cleaning up hay and grain fields after harvest, as shown 

 in figure 1. 



For a long time there was a belief that irrigation farmers could 

 not compete with the men on the ranges in the production of either 

 wool or mutton. The fallacy of this belief, however, has long been 

 shown by successful farm sheep producers. Because of the hazards 

 of the range sheep business and of the difficulties resulting from 

 settlement by dry farmers of areas formerly used as grazing lands, 

 the rangemen in many sections are coming to favor sheep produc- 

 tion on farms. As the difficulties of range sheep production increase 

 and with increasing demands for wool and mutton, the possibilities 

 for producing sheep on irrigated farms should become increasingly 

 attractive. 



Under certain conditions, particularly where irrigated pastures 

 have not been successfully developed, the ewes from several differ- 

 ent farms are sometimes combined into a cooperative band and sent 



