66 SHEEP EEEDESTG 



Value of concentrates. Bran, oil meal, and cottonseed 

 products are thought by many good feeders to be necessary 

 supplements when feeding corn, and are, without doubt, 

 excellent feeds, — especially the first two, — but it is ques- 

 tionable if they can be fed with corn at a profit when good 

 clover or alfalfa hay forms the roughness. With the non- 

 leguminous hays they become much more necessary. The 

 feeder who has to use timothy, prairie hay, or stover for a 

 roughness can profitably feed oil meal — or cottonseed meal 

 if he lives in the South and does not make too long a feed. 

 If corn and a concentrate are fed together, the corn should 

 be in such a form that the two can be mixed, for other- 

 wise the sheep seem to prefer to eat up the concentrate 

 first and then run around and look for more before they 

 begin on the corn. This may appear as a minor point, but 

 its value is shown by a large feeder who split a bunch of 

 sheep, half getting corn straight and the other half receiving 

 corn and a supplement ; otherwise they were treated alike. 

 At the end of a seventy-one day feed the corn-straight group 

 had gained seven pounds more than the corn-and-supplement 

 lot. The feeder's explanation for the poorer gains made 

 by those receiving the supplement was similar to the one 

 mentioned. He fed the concentrate with ear corn. 



Screenings. A few years ago one could have said with 

 safety that, in regard to quantity fed, screenings stood 

 close to corn as a sheep feed. There were large feeding 

 stations near the milling centers in Minnesota and Wis- 

 consin, and some near Chicago, where thousands of sheep 

 were fed annually the screenings that the big flour mills 

 sold for three to four dollars a ton. Now most of these 

 feeding plants are out of the business, and will probably 

 never take it up again. 



