MILK lambs: how to get, grow and market 249 



oats or barley and corn, because they are grown to a 

 greater extent than other grains. Where the prices will 

 admit of such feeding, the following is an excellent mix- 

 ture : 25 to 30 per cent wheat bran, 33 oats, peas or bar- 

 ley, 36 corn and the balance oilcake or cottonseed meal. 

 Some grain may be fed before the ewes produce lambs, 

 but if so it must be fed with much moderation. After the 

 lambs are several days old, it may be fed almost up to the 

 limit of the capacity of the ewes to consume the food 

 with a relish. When the ewes are to be sold for meat 

 soon after the lambs have been marketed, the corn should 

 be considerably increased in the grain ration. 



Care and food for the lambs — Milk lambs may be 

 grown when exposed to temperatures that are cool or 

 even cold, after they have reached the age of two or three 

 days, but the fact should not be forgotten that thus ex- 

 posed they will not grow so quickly as when in warmer 

 quarters, and the food consumption will be relatively 

 greater. Because of this growers of milk lambs in the 

 North prefer keeping them reasonably warm, even to the 

 extent, in some instances, of keeping them and the dams 

 inside all the while. 



The exercise called for is not usually so much for 

 milk lambs as for lambs grown for breeding. Too much 

 exercise which they are likely to take when they are given 

 unlimited range, would retard fattening, though favor- 

 able to muscle development. Too little exercise may re- 

 sult in more or less of paralysis in the limbs of the fattest 

 lambs. Usually they will take enough of exercise when 

 they are given a reasonable amount of room, and espe- 

 cially when they may have access to a yard on fine days 

 an hour or two daily. 



As soon as the lambs can be induced to eat, they 

 should be fed meal, and later grain, apart from the ewes. 

 Such food as ground oats, wheat middlings and oil meal 

 are suitable at the first and better in some sort of com- 

 bination than when fed alone. A little sugar sprinkled 



