256 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA. 



are very small lambs. A thousand lambs will 

 eat more than a ton of hay daily. It will take 

 about 2% bushels of com to fatten a lamb and 

 12 to 20 tons of hay to the hundred lambs, de- 

 pending on how long they are kept. 



Soon the stems of hay will accumulate in the 

 bam and make a good bed. The com should be 

 cut and the stalks fed in the open yard, which 

 will thus be kept dry and clean. The blades of 

 the com will be pulled off and eaten and the 

 hay thus helped out. 



Soon the manure spreader must be started 

 taking out the accumulating manure from the 

 shed. Every day a few loads may be hauled 

 away and spread on the frozen ground; thus 

 there is avoided the accumulation of a vast 

 amount of manure to be cleared away at one 

 time in spring when every sort of work is 

 crowding. 



Late in March the lambs may be shorn, if 

 they have not already gone to market, and the 

 feeding continued for a little time thereafter. 

 When they are ripe they should go to market, 

 since they will begin to die shortiy aftei^ard, 

 not from disease but from disorders favored by 

 too plethoric a condition. 



With small lambs it requires at least 120 

 days to ripen. With larger and more fleshy 

 lambs less time is required. With very small 

 lambs in thin flesh 180 days are none too many 

 to induce ripeness. The latter part of the feed- 

 ing period gives the most profit, since gains are 

 better than at the beginning when the lambs 

 are unused to feed. 



