PASTURING SHEEP ON ALFALFA. 
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dred pounds or $4.40 per head. We had, therefore, total 
receipts of almost exactly $1500.00 from 246 lambs. We. 
consider this a good showing. 
JOSEPH CARL, La Junta. 
We are pasturing 425 ewes and lambs on alfalfa the sea¬ 
son of 1 8q8‘. They have the run of twenty acres of alfalfa 
and up to June 8th, we have lost only one sheep by bloat.. 
This is our first trial of pasturing sheep on alfalfa and so 
far we are well pleased with it and shall go into it on a 
larger scale next year. 
S. H. POLLOCK, La Junta. 
I undertook to pasture about 300 ewes and 225 lambs on 
alfalfa pasture, by feeding them well on corn and hay before 
turning them on the alfalfa and then leaving them there 
day and night. I left them three days and lost three ewes.. 
I then gave it up and put them on the range. 
GEO. W. PARKER, La Junta. 
I have pastured sheep on alfalfa for three or four years 
and have lost on the average possibly two per cent by bloat. 
A good acre of alfalfa will support ten ewes and their lambs 
all summer. We turned the sheep off the land when we ir¬ 
rigated it. A cross bred Shropshire and Merino lamb past- 
tured on alfalfa ought to weigh 75 to 80 pounds, the first of 
October. From my experience, more especially with old 
ewes, I think well of lambing on alfalfa when the grass is 
short on the range and would especially recommend keep¬ 
ing the breeding ewes on the farm and feeding them nice 
green alfalfa hay before lambing instead of wintering them 
on the range. 
R. A. McKIBBON, Lamar. 
We run a few ewes, about fifty, on a small patch of 
eight acres of alfalfa. We have the lot divided and put the 
sheep in one while we irrigate the other. This is the second 
year we have tried it. We have lost two old ewes by bloat.. 
We expect our spring lambs to weigh 75 pounds by the first 
of October. The season of 1898, we also lost a lamb byr 
bloating. 
