206 HOW TO PEED SILAGE. 



the cost of his yearly feeding opera-tions. He feeds ordinarily two 

 pounds of silage and 1% pounds of grain a day (corn, bran and 

 cottonseed meal) with kafir fodder for roughage. 



After marketing his 10,000 lambs early in 1912, he was offered 

 $6.50 a ton for silage remaining on hand, but instead of selling, he 

 picked up a bunch of 1,800 poorly wintered lambs at low figures 

 which by means of silage he estimated later in the season would 

 bring him a profit of about $1.50 per head. 



Silage is looked upon with great favor among sheep men, says 

 Prof. WoU in his Book on Silage; sheep do well on it, and silage- 

 fed ewes drop their lambs in the spring without trouble, the lambs 

 being strong and vigorous. Silage containing a good deal of corn 

 is not well adapted for breeding stock, as it is too fattening; for 

 fattening stock, on the other hand, much com in the silage is an 

 advantage. Sheep may be fed a couple of pounds of silage a day 

 and not to exceed five or six pounds per hea'l. Prof. Cook reports 

 as follows in regard to the value of silage ^or sheep: "Formerly 

 I was much troubled to raise Iambs from grade Merino ewes. Of 

 late this trouble has almost ceased. Last spring I hardly lost a 

 lamb. While ensilage may not be the entire cause of the change, 

 I believe it is the main cause. It is positively proved that ensilage 

 is a most valuable food material, when properly fed, for all our 

 domestic animals." 



Mr. J. M. Turner of Michigan says concerning silage for sheep: 

 "Of late years we have annually put up 3,200 tons of com ensilage, 

 and this has been the principal ration of all the live stock at 

 Springdale Farm, our Shropshire sheep having been maintained on 

 a, ration of ensilage night and morning, coupled with a small ra- 

 tion of clover hay in the middle of the day. This we found to fully 

 meet the requirements of our flock until after lambing, from which 

 time forward we of course added liberal rations of wheat bran, 

 oats, and old-process linseed meal to the ewes, with a view of 

 increasing their flow of milk and bringing forward the lambs in the 

 most vigorous possible condition. Our flock-master was somewhat 

 anxious until after the lambs dropped, but now that he saved 196 

 lambs from 122 ewes, his face is wreathed in smiles, and he gives 

 the ensilage system the strongest endorsement." 



O. C. Gregg, superintendent of Farmers' Institutes for Minne- 

 sota, has been conducting some experiments on feeding silage to 

 sheep. He gives the result in one of our American exchanges as 

 follows: 



