400 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



troughs. Colorado lambs usually top the Chicago 

 and Omaha markets. The excellence of their mut- 

 ton is very great. Alfalfa does it, with a proper 

 amount of corn. 



After the sheep are fed there is left a tremendous 

 amount of manure. Once this was allowed to go to 

 waste. Eecently it has been found profitable to haul 

 it to the fields. In western Nebraska it is often put 

 on the old alfalfa meadows, where it has been found 

 very beneficial. 



Small Waste in Feeding. — There is no especial 

 care necessary in feeding sheep or lambs on alfalfa 

 hay. When hard frosts late in the season catch the 

 alfalfa it is sometimes injurious tO' sheep after being 

 made into hay. Ordinarily no harm ever comes to 

 a sheep from having as much alfalfa as it can eat. 

 It has been learned, however, that sheep may eat 

 their hay up nearly clean, rejecting only the most 

 woody portion, and thrive nearly as well as though 

 wasting all but the finer stems and leaves. Less 

 waste is found where the animals can thrust their 

 heads clear into the racks, or through the fences, to 

 reach the hay than when they must pull it through 

 narrow cracks in the rack. The writer makes his 

 alfalfa feeding racks with vertical slits 7" wide. 

 Through these sheep thrust their heads and keep 

 them there while eating. 



It is not true economy with fattening sheep or 

 lambs to require them to eat their hay too close; 

 better gains are had when they consume large 



