PASTURING SHEEP ON ALFALFA. 
I I 
and feed the year around. I now have only pure bred Cots- 
wold sheep at the home farm. I have two pastures, one of 
rye and one of blue grass; while one is growing they eat the 
other. 
Alfalfa is not used for pasture for sheep in this section 
at all. Where it has been tried the losses were heavy. 1 
understand that some feeders think they can afford to lose 
5 to lo per cent. This may do for toothless ewes, but my 
registered sheep are too valuable to take the risk. One of 
my neighbors put 1,500 sheep on alfalfa and I understand 
lost as high as sixteen in one day. Another tried it this 
spring, but the losses were so heavy he abandoned it. Near 
Las Animas they succeeded better, but here the alfalfa 
grows too rank. 
A. FORDER, Rocky Ford. 
I pastured one year 1200 ewes and their lambs on alfalfa 
for thirty days without any losses, then changed pastures 
and lost 75 ewes in about ten days, then changed to the 
range and will not try alfalfa pasture again. We did not 
irrigate the land while the sheep were there. 
1 have pastured old ewes and lambs on alfalfa after it 
stopped growing in the fall and did not lose any by bloat.. 
We fed corn at the same time and the sheep did well. 
J. P. STEVENSON, Rocky Ford. 
I have tried for several years to run sheep on alfalfa ; 
the result has been disastrous every time. Some four or five 
years ago I bought a bunch of New Mexican lambs, put 
them at first on very short alfalfa and kept them there for 
several days, then put them on better alfalfa. They com- 
menced to bloat and before I took them out I lost 65 head. 
I had at the time a bunch of 300 native ewes. I put them on 
the same ground and gave them the same treatment and 
never lost one. The next spring these ewes were turned on 
the alfalfa as soon as it appeared green, but as soon as it 
got some growth they commenced to die and I had to re- 
move them to native grass. I lost from one to four every 
day. Last fall I again bought 300 well bred Shropshire 
ewes. I put them on good alfalfa the first day I got them 
home and kept them there until night. I did not lose one. 
Next morning put them on again after dew was dry and 
kept them on all day ; lost one. I'he third day 1 waited 
