FEEDING EXPERIMENTS ON THE COLLEGE FARM. 
HISTORY. 
The following experiments were undertaken with a view of obtain¬ 
ing some accurate figures in regard to the feeding of sheep in Colorado 
and more particularly to ascertain the relative chance for profits in 
feeding southern and western sheep. 
The several bunches of sheep were secured in the fall and held 
on alfalfa hay until all preparations for the tests were completed. A 
test was made of the relative amounts of food eaten by the different 
sheep when on the same rations. Then on December 13, they were 
divided into four lots for the testing of four different feeds, namely, 
corn, wheat, sugar beets, and sugar beets and wheat, each being fed 
with alfalfa hay. The feeding test proper closed March 20, when all 
lots were again put on the same rations to determine their relative 
capacity for food. The western sheep were sold April 11, while the 
southern sheep were kept a month longer and used in a test of shrink¬ 
age in shipping as between corn and wheat for the grain feed. 
The animals used were as follows: Twenty yearling wethers, ob¬ 
tained from L. P. South worth, Cotswold and Shropshire blood topped 
on the original Merino. They w^ere selected for size and vigor from 
a large bunch, and were very heavy sheep. They were raised in 
southern Idaho. 
Seventeen wether lambs and three ewe lambs of the same source 
and general breeding as the yearling wethers. These were selected 
from a flock of 2,500, and represented the western lamb in its best 
possible form. They weighed nearly a hundred pounds apiece, 
though only five months old. 
Twelve yearling wethers from I^ew Mexico were obtained from C. 
R. Bullard. They were probably late lambs of the year before, and 
weighed but little more than the spring lambs. 
Eight wether lambs were also obtained from C. R. Bullard and 
twenty wether lambs from Jerry Beach. All were from New Mexico 
and all selected from large bunches, so as to be heavier sheep than 
the average though not much better feeders than are commonly ob¬ 
tained. Since the New Mexican sheep were low^ in quality the fall 
of 1894, it is probable that these tops represent about an average 
grade of an average year, although ten pounds heavier in weight. 
The tests were thus made with eighty sheep: twenty western year¬ 
lings, twenty western lambs, twelve southern yearlings, and twenty- 
eight southern lambs. 
FEEDING. 
As all of the feeding in Colorado has been done on a large scale, 
with almost no w^eights of either sheep or feed, and as no records 
have beemnade of amount eaten as separated from that wasted, it 
has been deemed best to print the full records of the feeding. The 
