Vol. LXII. No. 2774. 
NEW YORK, MARCH 28, 1903. 
II PER YEAR. 
THE HOTHOUSE LAMB. 
PRACTICAL TALK BY A PRACTICAL MAN. 
Present Condition and Outlook for the Business. 
QUALITY OP STOCK.—There is probably no 
branch of farming at the present time that affords a 
higher percentage of profit than the growing of “hot¬ 
house” lambs, and also none more generally misun¬ 
derstood. I suppose the adjective “hothouse” is to 
blame for this last, for while it serves a very good 
purpose as a trade name, by conjuring up visions of 
steam pipes and bottles of pap, it hardly describes 
the conditions under which they are raised. I have 
shipped 70 lambs up to March 3, and as my methods 
are about the same as those of the three or four other 
growers in this neighborhood, and while perhaps not 
the best, are still giving very satisfactory results, an 
account of them may not be entirely uninteresting. 1 
have a flock of 78 grade Dorset ewes, mostly one-half 
bloods, raised from very ordinary Merino mothers. I 
use a Dorset ram, chosen rather for short 
legs, compact body and good constitution 
than for size. I know that many growers 
recommend using a Southdown, saying 
that lambs from a Dorset sire grow too 
coarse and leggy. You sometimes sec 
Dorsets looking rather liKe a cross be¬ 
tween a camel and a goat, of which this 
might be true. But we lamb men here are 
fortunate in having among our number 
a breeder who does not keep that style of 
sheep. By selecting a lamb before he be¬ 
gins shipping we are able to get about 
what we want, and I suppose it is due to 
this rather than to a knowledge of the 
merits of other breeds, that all the grow¬ 
ers in our section are using Dorset rams. 
At the same time, from what I have heard 
and read, I believe we get more lambs in 
the season than we could by any other 
cross, and as it is not at all unusual to 
get 50 cents or a dollar above quotations, 
we try to be satisfied. 
CARD OF EWES.—My first lambs were 
dropped on the last day or two of Oc¬ 
tober, and by the middle of December 1 
had 72. Coming as early as this they re¬ 
quire no more attention at lambing time 
than if it were March or April. My barn 
is not particularly warm, although it can 
be shut up so as not to freeze unless the 
weather is very severe. As a matter of 
fact, during the past Winter there have 
been very few days or nights, either, 
when one or both doors to the east have 
not been open. We do not shear in the 
Pall as many lamb men do, and so do not have to be 
careful on that account. While the lambs are with 
them the ewes are fed all the corn silage they will 
eat in the morning. At noon they get all the grain 
they will clean up, consisting of equal parts by bulk 
of cull beans and oats, usually a little less than 1 ^, 
pound apiece, and also a little corn fodder fairly well 
At night they get a full feed of clover hay. 
to keep them good-natured and furnish a little pro¬ 
tein. If there should be any individuals not thriving 
on this fare I give them a better chance by putting 
in with such ewes as are carrying later lambs. 
FATTENING THE LAMBS.—As soon as the lambs 
are two or three weeks old they are ready to begin 
eating on their own hook. Then we fence off a pen 
with openings large enough to let the little fellows in 
and still keep out the old folks. The roomier this 
can be made and not crowd the ewes too much the 
better, for besides containing a miniature rack for 
hay and boxes or troughs for grain, it serves as a sort 
of asylum where the youngsters can sleep or scrap as 
the notion strikes them, with no old sheep to molest 
or make them afraid. At first I feed a mixture of 
about one-fourth oil meal and the remainder equal 
parts of bran and cornmeal, by bulk. After 10 days 
or two weeks, when they have come to eat this mix¬ 
ture in some quantity, I begin feeding whole shelled 
corn, and from that time on the two feeds are before 
eared. 
This last is an essential, the grain may be varied, 
and some men grow fine lambs without the silage or 
other succulent foods, but without clover hay or Al¬ 
falfa there is no satisfaction in it. I tried it in 1901 
and got all the experience I want in that line. The 
beans we get from bean-picking establishments, and 
as they analyze when pure about 25 per cent protein, 
we find them very satisfactory to balance the silage. 
Under this treatment the ewes are in considerably 
better fiesh when the lambs are sold than when they 
are born. After the lambs go they are carried through 
nctil grass on straw and cornstalks, with a few beans 
Before Pruning. After Pruning. 
KIEFFER PEAR TREEvS, PRUNED AND UNPRUNED. Fio 
See Page 231. 
them all the time, and they can take their choice. The 
result is that they eat larger and larger amounts of 
corn and less and less of the mixture as they approach 
the weight for shipping. 1 know this is rank heresy, 
and tliat I ought to experience all sorts of trouble 
from feeding so much corn, but I have not lost a sin¬ 
gle lamb this AVinter over three or four days old. 
While it is a hard matter to estimate with lambs of 
all ages running together, still I think it safe to say 
that a lamb of 40 or 45 pounds weight will make away 
with a pint of shelled corn a day, besides what he 
gets in the mixture. Of course, if a man were to dump 
a bushel of corn before a lot of 10-weeks-old lambs, 
which had learned to like it by feeding with the ewes, 
the result might be disastrous, but fed as we do it 
gives much better results than all of the enticing con¬ 
coctions we have been able to mix up. The little chaps 
seem to get as much fun out of crunching the ker¬ 
nels as the small boy does from cracking hickorynuts 
in his teeth. 
SHIPPING TO MARKET.—We ship to New York, 
and after considerable changing around in which we 
have had experience, agreeable and otherwise, we 
believe we have found a commission man who can sell 
lambs and who means to treat his patrons fairly. One 
grower in a neighboring town is doing remarkably 
well by selling direct to a butcher. I tried that once, 
but the fellow thought I was doing it solely from 
philanthropic motives, and kept the commission man’s 
profit for himself. I shipped my first lambs this Win¬ 
ter on December 20, when they were from six to seven 
weeks old, but the bulk of them are from eight to 10 
weeks in reaching sufficient weight, and there are al¬ 
ways a few twins to stay by until they are three 
months old or older. The peculiar thing about it is 
that these veterans sometimes bring the best prices, 
for while it is a popular belief that the Christmas 
lamb is the one to bring the most money it is often 
true, as it was this year, that the highest prices occur 
after the middle of February. These old lambs, if 
equally fat, seem to sell as well as any. 
We find usually up to the time that prices 
drop, which is usually from the middle to 
the last of February, that a lamb wcigli- 
ing a plump 30 pounds as dressed for the 
New York market is heavy enougli to 
command top prices; and if the demand 
is strong they may weigh two or three 
pounds under and sell as well, but it is a 
poor practice to send such lambs, for one 
is sure to lose in the end, as I have learn¬ 
ed to my cost. The price this year has 
been higher and much more uniform 
through the season than I have ever 
known before. We have been getting 
from $8 to |14 per head at New York, 
most of them selling at $12 and $12.50. 
The 70 lambs 1 have shipped netted me 
$749.25, after deducting ex[)ress and com¬ 
mission, an average of $10.70. This is 
about $4 better than the average for the 
same period four or five years ago, and 
other growers here have been doing even 
better than this. 
BUSINESS OUTLOOK.—The question 
we hear most often in the business is 
whether these prices will keep up. Ii 
seems hardly probable. I have a letter 
from our dealer dated February 20, in 
which he stated that at that time the New 
York market was taking only 150 to 200 
Iambs each week. If this is true it would 
seem that the business could be very 
85 easily overdone. They are mainly used 
by big hotels and steamers and wealthy 
clubs. If lambs are scarce these people 
will pay almost any price to get them, and will not 
be very particular as to quality. But if there is any 
surplus they take the best at their own figure and the 
rest practically go begging. I have known quotations 
to sag $3 or more in a single week, while the actual 
drop on fair and lower grades would greatly exceed 
this. Knowing the propensity of the Yankee to rush 
into any business which looks like a good thing, one 
would think that the market would have collapsed 
long ago, and so it would if the industry had been one 
that could be rushed. It is comparatively easy to 
raise a lamb after it is once born, for that involves 
simply a question of proper feed for ewe and young 
and plenty of it. But it takes several years to get a 
flock into the habit of lambing before the first of 
.lanuary, and lambs much later than this do not 
usually bring more profit than those dropped in the 
Spring and sold the next Winter. .About the only 
way with any assurance of success is to begin two 
generations back, and raise up a flock of ewts with. 
