8 
PASTURING SHEEP ON ALFALFA. 
got them home about two o’clock in the afternoon, turned 
them into an alfalfa field, went on to the house and paid no 
attention to them except to look from the house and see if 
they were still in the field. About sundown I turned them 
into the corral. I thought they looked full, but never 
thought of bloat, as the party from whom I bought them 
assured me there was no danger in pasturing on alfalfa. 
The next morning I turned them into the same field, and 
continued this practice as long as there was anything in the 
field to eat, in fact nearly all winter. The alfalfa was nearly 
a foot high when I turned them in and they were very 
hungry, for I had driven them thirty miles during the day 
and a half, and they had had little to eat or drink. This 
was my first experience in pasturing sheep on alfalfa and I 
never lost a single one. By the fall of 1897 I had received 
the advice from all the know-alls in the sheep business. I 
was warned never to let the sheep on to the alfalfa unless 
they were well filled up with feed and water, also especially 
never to turn sheep on alfalfa early in the morning. 
I adhered to both of these rules until I lost about forty- 
five ewes. The last loss was sixteen in less time than it 
takes to write it. They came off of a hill pasture where 
they had been all day. This was at four o’clock in the 
afternoon. Before half-past four they were tumbling in 
every direction. 
The next morning early I opened the gate from the 
corral and let them into the alfalfa field. Then I told my 
man not to go near them and I went away for the day, and 
at night they were all right with not a single loss. After 
that I continued to shut them up late at night and turn them 
out early and lost no more from that bunch. 
A few weeks later I bought another bunch of 600 ewes. 
I filled them up well on hay and corn for about a week. 
Then about the middle of one afternoon I turned them into 
the alfalfa. In half an hour I had lost nine head. The 
next morning I turned them out at daylight and lost no 
more. In all these cases 'there was plenty of water in all 
the fields. 
In the spring of 1898 I had about 900 ewes to lamb. 
Five hundred of them were in one bunch in a corral at one 
corner of a fifty acre alfalfa field. Early in the morning we 
opened the corral gate and filled the racks with hay so that 
the sheep could roam over the field or stay and eat hay if 
they preferred. This was begun before the alfalfa started. 
It was kept up until the middle of May by which time the 
alfalfa was a foot high. Then as we needed the alfalfa for 
