Fattening Range Lambs in Winter 165 
the same as for lambs, or possibly a little less. The cost 
of feeding, therefore, will be about 40 per cent greater, 
and the margin required correspondingly increased. For 
these reasons, there is not usually the profit in feeding 
wethers that there is in feeding lambs unless the margin 
is very large. 
FEEDING OLD EWES 
Large numbers of old ewes are sold in the stock-yards 
every fall at low prices, and in many cases offer attractive 
opportunities to the sheep-feeder. It is very essential, 
however, that these old sheep have good teeth. A large 
part of these old ewes are put on the market because their 
teeth are bad and they are no longer profitable on the range. 
Such ewes will not pay for feeding. In fact, they com- 
monly will not become fat at all and all of the feed put 
into them will be wasted. On the other hand, however, 
if the teeth are fairly good, they may often be profitable. 
Sometimes the teeth are too bad to allow the ewes to be 
kept on the range, but are still good enough so that they 
will fatten when put on good feed. In general, fattening 
old ewes is rather risky, and such ewes should not be 
bought for feeding purposes without a very careful ex- 
amination. The rations required for ewes are about the 
same as for wethers, though in some cases slightly less. 
Grinding the grain for ewes will sometimes pay, but not 
usually. The gains will vary from nothing to one-fourth 
pound a day, and the cost is usually somewhat higher than 
with wethers. 
