156 Western Live-stock Management 



will necessarily vary considerably in condition, and some 

 will be ready for market long before the others. The 

 feeder will therefore go through the bunch a number of 

 times during the winter and top out the best to send to 

 market. Handled in this manner, some of the sheep will 

 not remain on feed over thirty days, while others will 

 remain on feed as much as three or four months. 



FEEDS AND RATION 



Corn is perhaps the best grain for feeding lambs, but it 

 is not available in the lamb-fattening districts of the 

 West except eastern Colorado. In this particular district 

 the lambs are all fed alfalfa hay raised on the farms, to- 

 gether with corn shipped in from Kansas and Nebraska. 

 The finest lambs produced in America come from this 

 section. In other states, oats, barley, bran, and screen- 

 ings are commonly used. Screenings are variable in their 

 cost and in their value, but in most cases will produce 

 just as rapid gains as barley, though requiring larger 

 quantities. When a lamb would be fed one pound of 

 grain a day, he would be given perhaps one and one-fourth 

 to two pounds a day when screenings are used. If the 

 screenings are very chaffy, as much as three pounds a day 

 are sometimes fed. In this case, no hay is used, since the 

 chaff and cob in the screenings afford the necessary 

 roughage. 



While alfalfa is most popular, clover hay, free from 

 weeds or other grass, and well cured, will give equal re- 

 sults. Prairie hays and wild hays of various sorts are 

 seldom used, and in practically no case do they give the 

 same satisfaction as alfalfa. The Wyoming Experiment 

 Station has made a long series of tests of alfalfa in com- 



