4 SHEEP FEEDING 



ewes carry these worms or eggs over winter, and, while 

 grazing the pastures in the spring, scatter through their 

 manure the eggs, which finally hatch and infest the tender 

 grass spots that the lambs so eagerly seek. Thus the lambs 

 become infested, and, as the pastures get short and the days 

 hot, the lambs become poor and emaciated, and then it is 

 that the worms work their havoc. Indications of worms in 

 sheep are well described by Joseph E. "Wing in his book 

 "Sheep Farming in America." He is speaking to the man 

 who is looking for feeders on the market, and says, "Here 

 are some natives, big enough, but their lackluster eyes and 

 sunken wool and general air of discouragement speak, 

 surely, of an internal revenue department held under the 

 rule of predatory parasitic worms." By these signs they 

 are known, and by these signs avoid them. Of course 

 there are native sheep not infested with worms, that reach 

 the market in good health, and in some few cases are thin 

 enough to go to the feed yards, but the majority of healthy 

 natives that reacli the market go to the killers. There are 

 few, if any, cases when it is wise for a beginner to start with 

 native sheep to feed. The old experienced feeder may in 

 some cases find it advisable to handle a bunch of them, but 

 before attempting it he should be sure that his judgment 

 is sound regarding a healthy sheep, and that his conditions 

 at home will permit of their profitable feeding. 



A second reason that some feeders give for avoiding even 

 the healthy natives is because, they say, they are accus- 

 tomed to good pasture and care where they are raised, — at 

 least, as compared to the bleak, • scantily grassed pastures 

 of the West, — and when taken to a feed yard where con- 

 ditions are not the best they will not thrive like a West- 

 ern sheep. 



