24 
FARMEKS' BULLETIN 840, 
THE FORAGE-CROP METHOD. 
The practice of grazing the flock on forage crops until the hunbs 
are sold is becoming popular where lands are high in price and 
where stomach worms cause trouble. Under this plan the ewes and 
lambs are first grazed on fall-sown wheat or rye. The land is 
divided to avoid the necessity of keeping the flock longer than 10 
days upon the same ground. By the time the second lot of this 
crop is grazed down, spring-sown peas and oats can be ready and the 
fall-wheat ground plowed and reseeded to another cereal or to rape 
or soy beans for later use. Such a plan requires some labor in pre- 
paring and seeding the land, but it produces the largest amount of 
feed per acre and prevents trouble from the stomach worms. 
In 1915 three lots of ewes with lambs Avere reared at the Illinois 
Experiment Station to test the value of the grass-pastures, dry-lot 
and forage-crop methods. All of the lambs were dropped about the 
middle of March. The lambs running on grass ate an average of 
0.3 pound of grain per head daily from March 27 to July 15, those 
in the dry lot 0.7 pound, and those on forages 0.3 pound. The gains 
made and the market value of the lambs when sold are shown in the 
following table : 
Comparison of three methods of feeding lamhs at the Illinois Experiment 
Station, 1915. 
Method. 
Dry-lot 
Pasture (with grain) 
Forage 
Averaee 
weight 
Founds. 
SeUing price. 
f.f, 1 ;17 ac rS' X 
^^•1 13 at .S7. 00. 
64 ^. /15 at $7.75. 
^^■^ \5atS7.00.. 
72.4 I 20 at S8. 50. 
Ratio of 
not re- 
turns. 
Per cent. 
> 100 
131.8 
195. 7 
O 
