do not need shearing if they are to be marketed before April 15. If 
they are to be held until late in May, they had better be sheared in 
the spring rather than the fall. 
DEATH LOSSES, 
Colorado sheep are pre-eminently healthy. Losses from disease 
after the sheep are in the feeding yards are very infrequent. More¬ 
over, the alfalfa hay is such an excellent fodder for producing both 
bone and muscle that the sheep, even in the last stages of fattening, 
are still healthy and strong. They stand shipment easily, and it is 
not uncommon’ for a train load of three thousand head to go through 
to Chicago without a single death. The shipping distance from New 
Mexico to Colorado is so short that not many head die while being 
brought in. Some train loads brought from Idaho and from southwest- 
ern New Mexico had a somewhat higher death loss. With the exception 
of one band that lost fifty head by an accident, the highest death loss 
that has come to light in Colorado the past season was about twenty- 
five head in a bunch of i^iore than fifteen hundred. This is about one- 
and a half per cent. The next highest is less than one per cent.,, 
and from that down to less than a fifth of one per cent. The average 
for the State is not far from a half of one per cent., or five head per 
thousand. 
This is surprisingly small when compared with the death losses in 
Nebraska. Where corn is fed there with timothy hay, they finally 
work the sheep up to two and a half pounds per day per head. Such 
heavy corn feeding has a tendency to produce weakness and disease, 
especially impaction. Nebraska feeders calculate on a death loss of 
from two to five per cent., with an average of about three per cent. 
This would be three hundred sheep out of the ten thousand that are^ 
commonly gathered at a feeding ranch, or just about one thousand, 
dollars worth of dead sheep. 
SHIPPING. 
As soon as enough of the sheep to make a few car loads get fat,, 
shipping begins. From a third to a half in the bunch are picked out 
for the first shipments. The degree of fatness is the test; the size iS' 
secondary. The Chicago market pays just as much per pound for a 
small fat sheep as for a large one if both are equally fat. If ten or 
more car loads of sheep are shipped at the same time, the railroads 
will make up a special train and send the stock through on nearly 
passenger time. Enough sheep are now being fed in Colorado, so 
that by conference and mutual agreement train-load lots can always 
be shipped. One train of thirty-three cars, last winter, contained 
over six thousand sheep. The railroads allow one passenger free 
transportation one way for each carload. By shipping two cars in 
charge of one man, he gets free return transportation. 
The sheep are usually loaded in the afternoon and start at once 
upon their journey. Twenty-four hours of fast travelling brings 
