1028 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 21, 
TIMELY SHEEP NOTES. 
Unprofitable Ewes. —The Winter 
season, the time when sheep demand the 
most feed and care, is fast approach¬ 
ing. You may have been able to pas¬ 
ture a few old or unthrifty ewes through 
the Summer without feeling it much, 
but you certainly cannot afford it after 
the coming of frost. Ewes, particularly 
those bred for early lambs, to be profit¬ 
able, must be strong and young and 
healthy*to stand up under heavy feeding 
and confinement. If they are unfit, there 
is no better time to get rid of them than 
when they are corning off Summer pas¬ 
turage. See that their teeth are all 
sound and not worn down too much. 
Without good teeth, they may be able to 
keep themselves in pretty good shape for 
awhile, but if pasturage gets scant and 
you have to feed hay, they will soon 
get a lean, unsatisfied look to them. 
They are liable to be very uneasy, too, 
breaking through fences and making the 
rest of the flock hard to manage. When 
their- lambs come, they lose flesh very 
fast in trying to care for them. They 
soon reach the limit and neither lambs 
nor ewes improve much until late Sum¬ 
mer. For the early market, even 
though dropped in season, such lambs 
are almost worthless. Don’t judge a 
ewe by her past good record when her 
teeth are gone; the sooner you get rid 
of her the better. 
A ewe may be both young and healthy 
and yet have a bad udder. Often you 
can tell by examining her. The safest 
way, though, is to keep a record at lamb¬ 
ing time. If she went back on her 
lamb, I would not trust her again, no 
matter how good her breeding or con¬ 
dition. My finest and largest lamb in 
the Winter of 1909 was from just such a 
ewe, and I lost it. The next year I 
raised another nearly as good by hand, 
but I had no more use for the ewe. Of 
course, if a ewe appears rundown or 
sickly at this season, she is hardly likely 
to pay you for her keep or the extra at¬ 
tention she will need. The value of your 
flock in looks and profit depends on keep¬ 
ing these worthless animals weeded Out. 
It takes a little extra care and judgment, 
but you can well afford them now. With 
small flocks, where there are only four 
or five such ewes to be got rid of, their 
disposal at an advan; ge is a good deal 
of a problem. Sometimes the local 
butcher will handle them, but in many 
sections there is a prejudice against old 
mutton. In my locality, at times, they 
hardly pay for the trouble it takes to get 
them to market. Many farmers so situ¬ 
ated would find it to their advantage to 
kill them for home use. I have found it 
very little trouble to handle a carcass 
without loss, even when the family is 
small. Mutton is most nourishing. Per¬ 
sonally, I would prefer it to hog meat 
any day, although in a number of farm¬ 
ing districts I have found the people did 
not think an old sheep fit to eat. The 
strong flavor so many object to can be 
easily avoided by taking care to skin the 
meat clean before cooking. They are a 
most convenient supply of farm meat, be¬ 
ing easier to handle than a cow or steer, 
and are a most acceptable change from 
the everlasting hog and chicken. 
Ragweed for Sheep. —Here, as in 
many other sections this year, the Win¬ 
ter supply of long feed is very short. 
Those who in the past have been for¬ 
tunate or provident enough to have a 
good supply of clover hay or Alfalfa, 
are many of them having to buy or find 
a substitute. Just what that will be, or 
how cheap a grade of stuff they can feed 
their sheep without hurting their pros¬ 
pects, is a question. Certainly nothing 
will take the place of the feeds above 
mentioned, even with liberal grain feed¬ 
ing, which is expensive. Feeding any 
Timothy or mixed hay is certainly fool¬ 
ish at prevailing prices, especially _ as 
sheep make very poor returns for Tim¬ 
othy feeding. Where possible, of course, 
grain will be fed. but there must be a 
good deal of roughage as well. Plant¬ 
ings of cow peas and sorghum are going 
to help many of us, and in some cases 
silage. The bulk of small farmers, how¬ 
ever, have to depend a great deal on 
corn fodder or something else. For 
sheep, the fodder ought to be shredded, 
but even where fed with molasses, they 
do none too well on it. Consequently, 
all through this section, farmers are 
cutting ragweed for hay, not only for 
sheep but for other stock. Sheep may 
not be so fond of corn fodder, but 
they are certainly partial to well-cured 
ragweed. I found this out some years 
ago when looking up methods of sheep 
feeding in this State. One successful 
grower reported that he had used rag¬ 
weed for hay for a number of years. 
Whether he couldn’t or wouldn’t grow 
clover he did not say. But the fact re¬ 
mains, that when I have to, I can feed 
my sheep ragweed and not worry too 
much about their falling back. At its 
best, it is rather rough stuff, but if cut 
when fairly green and cured carefully, it 
will more than help bridge over the 
empty spaces this Winter and save on 
fodder. I am also laying in as large a 
supply of pumpkins and turnips as pos¬ 
sible ; the pumpkins for late Fall feeding, 
to keep them fat and free from worms, 
and the turnips to increase the flow of 
milk and put a little juice into the dry 
ragweed. Some of the ragweed, by the 
way, is flavored with Alfalfa, having 
come up in place of a last cutting of the 
same. R - B - 
Maryland. 
Do Commercial Feeds Pay ? 
Docs it pay to buy commercial feeds, 
such as oil meal at $37 a ton, cotton-seed 
meal same price, dried brewers’ grain at 
$26, gluten meal at $28, bran at $24 a 
ton. to feed to milch cows, when you are 
making butter from the cream of said cows 
and have to sell it for 25 cents a pound, 
when you have of .your own raising all the 
corn and all the oats and all the clover 
hay that is good for them, corn shelled and 
oats being worth one cent a pound, and 
clover hay about $10 a ton? c. L. u. 
Illinois. 
Your inquiry brings up one of the most 
interesting questions with which dairymen 
have been confronted since the business be¬ 
gan. It seems that such a broad question 
as this, when considered in all Its phases, 
can never be settled conclusively, because 
there are so many different methods of 
feeding, and modifications of the same 
method, all of which are used under so 
many different conditions and for such a 
variety of different cows that each dairy¬ 
man must use his own judgment after all 
has been said that our present knowledge 
of the subject seems to justify. My own 
opinion, based upon considerable experience, 
is that if >t pays to keep a cow at all it 
pays to feed her just as well as we know 
how. It may be argued that a cow may be 
fed well and kept in good condition with¬ 
out feeding her a scientifically balanced 
ration. While this may be agreeable to 
the cow, the best interests of her owner 
demand that she shall have a practical 
balanced ration in order to produce the 
greatest returns in the form of milk and 
butter at the least possible expense. With 
the present difficulties which confront us 
who are in the dairy business, and prevent 
the making of any large profits from the 
sale of milk and butter, there is oue funda¬ 
mental principle upon which all must agree, 
and that is it does not pay to keep poor 
cows. Naturally the oily way to know 
which the poor cows are is to keep an indi¬ 
vidual record of them and dispose of all 
that do not pay their keep. If every dairy¬ 
man would do this I believe the over-pro¬ 
duction would soon be wiped out, and that 
the selling price of the p oducts of the 
dairy would increase s.; that the net re¬ 
ceipts would equal or exceed the present 
total. This would mean the saving of all 
the feed now eaten by unprofitable cows 
which, no doubt, would amount to a large 
sum in the course of a year. 
Now I will submit the chemists’ figures 
showing the analyses of the ration com¬ 
pounded from home grown feeds entirely: 
-Digestible.- 
Feeding Stuff. Dry Carb. 
Matter. Protein, and Fat. 
20 lbs. clover hay. 17.00 1.36 7.92 
4 lbs. cornmeal.. 3.56 .316 3.056 
6 lbs. ground oats 5.34 .552 3.408 
25.90 2.228 14.384 
Nutritive ratio, 1 :6.45. 
You will notice that this ration is de¬ 
ficient in both protein and succulence; 
therefore it is impossible for a cow to do 
her best work when fed such a ration. 
Now we will suppose that you sell half 
of your corn and oats at one cent per 
pound and buy cotton-seed meal and dried 
beet pulp with the proceeds, and adding 
about 1 % cents per day for each cow to 
make up for the extra cost of the pur¬ 
chased feed. This is the ration you would 
then have: 
-Digestible.- 
Feeding Stuff. 
Drv 
Carb. 
Matter. Protein, and Fat. 
20 lbs. clover hnv. 
17.00 
1.36 
7.92 
2 lbs. cornmeal. . 
1.78 
.158 
1.528 
3 lbs. ground oats 
2.67 
.276 
1.704 
1 Vi lbs. cotton¬ 
seed meal.... 
1 .377 
.555 
.672 
3 lbs. dried beet 
pulp . 
2.808 
.204 
1.962 
25.635 
2.553 
13.786 
You will see that by changing the ration 
as above you have nearly an ideal ration, 
perfectly balanced and containing a fair 
amount of succulence, although little more 
beet pulp would probably be an improve¬ 
ment. If you will feed this ration to good 
cows I am sure you will find that it will 
more than pay the extra cost in increased 
production. If anyone else of the Rural 
Family have a similar proposition T would 
very much like to have them try this plan 
of feeding and report results. c. s. g. 
(Not for boys — they're all right and their turn 
will come latet—but this is for the boss.) 
Thousands of farmers will buy gasoline engines this Fall and W inter. 
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BRANCHES 
1007 Farnam St. 
Omaha, Neb. 
2112 Central St. 
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J. B. SEAGER, Gen. Mgr. 
Seager Engine Works 
908 Walnut St., Lansing, Mich. 
BRANCHES 
102 N. Los Angeles St. 
Los Angeles, Cal. 
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To make quick deliveries, I also have a complete stock of engines and parts in warenouses at 
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FREE 
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Send me full particulars about the following engine. It 
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Style wanted : Portable Stationary 
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908 
