- 39 - 
FEEDING RECORD MARCH 20 TO APRIL 10. 
Total 
digestible 
Per head per day. per day Gain in 
Total per 1000 lbs weight 
Hay. Wheat. Beets. Digestible, live weight. per head. 
Western yearlings, 2.62 1.00 5.00 3.00 18.4 9.4 
Western lambs, 3.00 1.00 5.00 3.13 21.8 12.1 
Mexican yearlings, 2.00 0.75 3.00 2.08 21.0 5.0 
Mexican lambs, 1.80 0.58 3.00 1.83 20.3 4.4 
Average, 2.33 0.83 4.00 2.51 20.4 7.7 
O " 
The appetites seem to have undergone a change during the winter. 
The western lambs eat the most per head and per weight, even exceed¬ 
ing the Mexican yearlings that in the fall were far the largest eaters. 
The western yearlings have fallen to the rear, both in food eaten 
and in gain in weight. They reached the limit of their rapid growth some 
weeks before. In fact, old sheep naturally fatten more quickly than 
lambs, and to be most profitable should be sold as soon as they are 
ready for market. 
The gains in live weight follow closely the amount of food eaten 
for each class of sheep, i. e., western lambs eat and gain more than 
western yearlings, while Mexican yearlings eat and gain more than 
Mexican lambs. 
The western lambs and yearlings were sold April 10. It would 
probably have been better, commercially, to have sold the Mexican 
sheep at the same time; but they were kept to make a further experi¬ 
ment of the relative value of wheat and corn as foods to ‘‘finish off” 
sheep for market. The lambs were evenly divided: one-half fed 
cracked wheat and the other half cracked corn, each without beets. 
The weather was very disagreeable and the sheep which were 
already quite fat did not eat much nor make much gain. On May 7, 
they were shipped to Chicago, to Swift & Co. With these, as with 
the western sheep consigned to the same firm, the slaughtering of the 
two lots was done separately, and full data furnished us of dressed 
weight, tallow, etc., so that we have the complete records of these four 
bunches of sheep from the time they left the range until they were 
hung up in Swift & Company’s refrigerators. 
WHAT SHEEP IS THE MOST PROFITABLE TO FEED? 
This question is more frequently asked than any other. The figures 
of these feeding tests furnish a good basis for a satisfactory answer to 
this question. 
The conditions of the test all the way through favored the large 
western sheep. They "were better specimens of their class than the 
southern sheep. They were bought on little more advantageous terms 
