44 BULLETIN 1360, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Shearer lambs.—This subclass comprises a group of animals 
similar to feeder lambs. <As a rule they are somewhat deficient in 
finish, but average higher in this respect than feeder lambs. In 
fact, slaughterers and shearer-lamb buyers frequently compete for 
the same lambs. As the name implies, the chief object in buying 
them is to return them to the country, shear them, and later bring 
them back to market. Hence shearer lambs usually carry a reason- 
ably heavy fleece. Occasionally the lamb is fed long enough to 
raise it one or more steps in the grade schedule before it is returned 
for slaughter. 
During the late winter or early spring, at the larger public mar- 
kets some lambs are always purchased as shearer lambs; but the 
practice is most prevalent when wool is relatively high and the trend 
of fat-lamb prices upward. It is based partly on “the theory that 
the wool will bring a higher price if removed from the lamb than if 
it is sold to the slaughterer on the lamb’s back, and partly on the ex- 
pectation of a quick weight gain in the lamb and a higher market 
when it is returned for slaughter. 
Slaughter lambs are divided into two age selections—spring and 
lamb. 
Spring lamb.—The term “spring lamb” (see fig. 26) is not easily 
defined. ‘Theoretically any lamb dropped late in the winter or early 
in the spring is a spring lamb and might be so considered until the 
close of the grass season the following fall. In market practice, how- 
ever, the term is based on the time of birth combined with the time 
of marketing. Hence the term “spring lamb” is limited to lambs 
which are born during the winter or very early spring and which 
come to market between the middle of March and the first of J a 
As a rule these lambs are dropped sometime between January 1 
and April 1. They are marketed when 3 to 5 months old and usu- 
ally weigh between 55 and 70 pounds. The first of them usually 
come to market shortly before Easter and are in the nature of a 
delicacy.° 
Lamb.—The chief reason for giving spring lambs a special desig- 
nation is to distinguish them from the more mature lambs, (see fig. 
27) which were born approximately a year earlier and which, aS a 
rule, have been carried through the winter in feed lots. By the end 
of June most of the latter have attained the age and maturity which 
make them on! hngs. Thereafter they are known as yearling sheep, 
and the spring lamb, in the meantime, has taken on additional weight 
and maturity and at the same time, in market parlance, has ac- 
quired the new label “lamb.” From that time until nearly a year 
later what was formerly called a spring lamb is known as a lamb. 
In other words, the spring lamb drops his more youthful appellation 
at about the same time that his predecessor of a year earlier ceases 
to be a lamb and becomes a yearling. 
5 Hothouse lamb.—Although a market commodity of some economic importance in certain 
sections of the country, hothouse lambs rarely reach centralized livestock markets. Such 
lambs are usually dropped in the late fall or early winter. Both ewe and lamb are given 
special attention in the matter of feed, housing, and handling in general, with a view to 
forcing the iamb’s growth to the utmost. Such lambs are usually marketed before they 
are 3 months old ‘and ordinarily are home-dressed with pelt on. They go to market 
throughout the winter from the Christmas holiday season to Easter and constitute a 
delicacy of the highest order. Most hothouse lambs are disposed of through hotel supply 
or commission houses and usually go to the larger hotels and high-class restaurants. 
