234 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



gers so that they will occasionally eat a little of the 

 weed, which tends to prevent parasitic troubles. 



MARKETING 



Profit from winter lambs is not entirely a ques- 

 tion of breeding the sheep, of handling or manag- 

 ing, or feeding or sheltering or protecting them in 

 winter. Attention to all these factors would fail 

 to produce a profit unless there is a reasonable 

 proximity of market. It is obviously impossible 

 to ship lambs which have not yet learned to subsist 

 without their mother's milk to any great distance 

 with the expectation of selling them for slaughter 

 upon their arrival. The suffering of the animals 

 under these conditions would be extreme, and the 

 shrinkage would be so great as to wipe out any 

 possible profits. A few years ago a Colorado sheep 

 man shipped some ten-week-old lambs direct from 

 the range to Kansas City with the expectation of 

 selling them as milk lambs. After separating them 

 from their dams, they were loaded into a car and 

 forwarded as rapidly as possible, but the shrinkage 

 was great and the lambs arrived in such poor con- 

 dition as to be almost unsalable. The experiment 

 was a total failure. The most successful producers 

 of hothouse lambs are found under farm conditions 

 where from 50 to 200 ewes can be handled. By 

 continued selection of breeding stock a large per- 

 centage of ewes can be secured which will bear 

 twin lambs, and in this way the increase may be as 

 high as 150 per cent. It is customary to slaughter 

 these lambs upon the farm a few at a time and ship 

 the dressed carcasses by express to city markets, 

 the sales having been made previous to slaughter- 

 ing the animals. In this way shrinkage is avoided. 



