II. RAISING EARLY LAMBS. 
BY W. W. COOKE. 
For many years there have been a few early lambs 
raised in Colorado. The large markets for early lambs— 
Chicago, New York and Boston—are so distant that Colo¬ 
rado can hardly hope to compete with the eastern states in 
supplying lambs in the spring to these cities. Kansas City 
and Omaha are near enough to be reached, but they are 
never able to handle very many lambs at one time and their 
total demand for early lambs is not large. The local market 
in Colorado is still more limited. It is evident, then, that 
not many people in Colorado can profitably engage in the 
raising of early lambs. But there is always a demand for 
some of these lambs and some one has to supply that de¬ 
mand. At the present time the attention of Colorado feed¬ 
ers is turned more particularly to the feeding of lambs 
raised in the south and west, because for them the market 
is almost unlimited and they can be handled by the thou¬ 
sands. The object of the present inquiry was to learn 
whether the small farmer can raise early lambs and realize 
as much for his labor and feed as his neighbor with the 
larger farm does with the older lambs. 
During the summer of 1895 fifty ewes were purchased 
for the test. Half were grades of the Shropshire crossed 
onto the Merino, and the other half were Horned Dorset 
and Merino. They were a fine lot of ewes, all of them three 
years old, having dropped their second lamb the spring of 
1895. They cost three dollars per head. Fifteen of the 
Shropshire ewes were served by registered Shropshire bucks, 
the other ten by registered Dorset bucks. Fifteen of the 
Dorset ewes were served by the Dorset bucks the other ten 
by Shropshire bucks. The lambs were dropped during 
January and February of 1896. 
The fifteen Shropshire ewes that were served by Shrop¬ 
shire bucks dropped 14 lambs, of which 11 were buck lambs 
and 3 ewe lambs. The ten Shropshire ewes served by Dor¬ 
set bucks dropped 13 lambs, 5 bucks and 8 ewes. The fifteen 
Dorset ewes served by Dorset bucks dropped 20 lambs, 16 
