FEEDING SHEEP AND GOATS 327 
(1) 50 pounds corn meal, 50 pounds wheat middlings, and 5 
pounds oil meal, 
(2) 25 pounds wheat bran, 25 pounds wheat middlings, 25 
pounds hominy meal, 8 pounds linseed meal. 
The lambs are fed grain in a separate pen (creep), as pre- 
viously explained. Rightly handled, hot-house lambs will make a 
sufficiently rapid growth to be ready for the market in ten to 
twelve weeks from birth. They will gain at least one-half pound 
each daily during this period, and will reach a weight of about 50 
pounds at slaughtering time. These lambs are generally marketed 
before March, as the prices in the East, where they are mostly 
produced, as a rule go down after this time. 
Early Spring Lambs. —Fattening early spring lambs has be- 
come an important industry in the South. By the use of Bermuda 
grass, bur clover, and Japan clover, permanent’ pasture may be 
available in this section ten months of the year, and temporary 
winter pasture may be resorted to the remaining two months, thus 
giving both ewes and lambs the advantage of pasturage during 
practically the entire year; the lambs may be fed grain separately 
and marketed during April to June, when good prices prevail.? In 
many cases the ewes are fed nothing but cotton-seed meal and 
cotton-seed hulls, the daily feed being .5 pound meal and 1.3 
pounds hulls; another cheap southern feed is soybean hay. 
Fall Lambs.—Fattening lambs are often carried until fall on 
pasturage, with a slight feed of grain, say one-half pound per head 
daily, and are sold at about eight months old, when they will weigh 
in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. Rape sown in the corn or on 
ground set apart especially for this crop will- furnish excellent 
supplemental feed for such lambs, as well as for fattening sheep in 
general, If rape is grown by itself, it is either sown broadcast or 
in drills 30 inches apart, the advantage of the latter method being 
that a larger yield of green forage will be secured, and that the 
field can be kept free from weeds (p. 138). Movable hurdles are 
generally used where rape is pastured off by sheep or swine. 
Winter Lambs.—Another method is to fatten the lambs during 
the winter season. This is the common method practised in regions 
where lambs are fattened for market. In the Hast the lambs are 
generally kept in rectangular feeding pens with hay racks and 
grain troughs provided with vertical slats, making an opening for 
each lamb. They are put on full feed in about three weeks and 
® Alabama Bulletin 148; Missouri Circular 25; Tennessee Bulletin 84. 
