FATTENING SHEEP AND LAMBS IN WINTER 221 



quality, if the sheep are to make the requisite gains. 

 When large lots are fed, it may be taken from vessels 

 supplied with floats to regulate the supply. To small 

 lots it may be furnished in buckets or tubs in the sheds. 

 Larger quantities of water will be consumed by sheep 

 that are being fattened, especially in the absence of field 

 roots or silage. It is quite practicable to feed field roots 

 to the extent of rendering it unnecessary to furnish any 

 water. (8) When fattening sheep and lambs in winter, 

 no practical benefit bearing on increase results from 

 shearing them before putting them on a fattening ration. 

 This conclusion rests on the result of general experi- 

 ments conducted by experiment stations, one of which 

 was conducted by the author at the experiment station 

 at Guelph, Ont., Canada. It was found, however, that 

 lambs thus fattened reached the market of Great Britain 

 in a form that was more attractive to the buyer than lambs 

 not shorn when the fattening began. Prof. John A. Craig 

 also found at the Wisconsin Station that shearing lambs 

 not more than six months old was helpful in preparing 

 them for autumn fattening, provided the shearing was 

 done not later than early October. But when the fatten- 

 ing of sheep or lambs is carried on into the springtime, 

 the fattening will be more rapid if the fleece is removed 

 as soon as the weather grows warm. 



Self-feeders and their place — Self-feeding of sheep 

 means allowing them to take their food from boxes or 

 racks, according to the kind of the food, whenever they 

 want to eat from the same. The racks in which the hay 

 is fed, and also the boxes in which the grain is fed, are so 

 constructed that the food is continually accessible. In 

 some instances the grain only is fed in self-feeders, the 

 coarse fodder being supplied once or twice each day. 



Self-feeders for grain are simply oblong boxes with 

 considerably more width at the top than the bottom. 

 When exposed they have a roof to protect the grain. In 

 this roof is a hinged lid, which extends along much or all 



