PASTURING SHEEP ON ALFALFA. 
15 
the reason for keeping them at home instead of sending 
them out on the range. The number lost to date by bloat 
was fifteen or three per cent. They had some forty acres 
of alfalfa to run on and were not keeping it at all close. 
Quite a share of those lost had been when some overflow 
water ran into one corner of the field. Mr. McNaught says 
that if the whole field had been irrigated, there would have 
been less danger of bloating than with merely a single spot. 
Mr. McNaught’s doctrine in regard to pasturing sheep on 
alfalfa is never to let them get hungry. The best way is to 
have the fence coyote tight, but if this cannot be done, then 
corral them at night as he is doing this summer and let 
them out early in the morning.] 
PURVIS BROS., Las Animas. 
During the summers of 1897 and 1898 the grass was so 
good on the range that, as a general thing, it paid to run 
sheep on the range. Indeed, under these conditions of an 
abundance of fine grass, the lambs are almost as good as 
those pastured on alfalfa and the expense is less. 
We had only about a hundred sheep on alfalfa during 
the summer of 1898. They did quite well. We had them, 
their lambs and ten horses on a twenty acre pasture and we 
could almost have cut it for hay. When the lambs were 
weaned the ewes were nearly fat enough for market. 
The cause of the greatest loss from bloat is probably 
the necessity of corralling at night on account of coyotes. 
Where this plan is practiced the sheep should not be put 
into the corral until almost dark and turned out in the 
morning before daylight. The sheep generally bloat in the 
evening and this is due most likely to the practice of leav¬ 
ing them in the corral too late in the morning. Some actually 
put them in the corral at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, think¬ 
ing to avoid the loss, as it is after this time that they gener¬ 
ally bloat, and then leave them shut up until after the dew 
is off in the morning. This makes about sixteen hours in 
the corral and only eight hours on feed, consequently the 
sheep do not do well. 
This year, 1898, was the fourth season for us of pasturing 
alfalfa with sheep. On the average we have lost about five 
per cent, with bloat. We have the field divided into two 
parts and pasture one while we irrigate the other. These 
were old ewes and were pastured all summer. We expect 
alfalfa fed lambs to weigh about 75 pounds the first of Oc¬ 
tober. 
[When on a visit to the Arkansas Valley in July the 
