which they fed was extra good. Three lots of southern yearling 
wethers were brought up in March and crowded for the May market. 
But these are rare exceptions to the general rule that the May market 
is supplied by southern lambs that are in extra good condition from 
six months’ feeding. 
METHODS OF FEEDING. 
In all sheep-feeding east of Colorado, hay is considered of value 
only as enabling the sheep to consume a large amount of grain and 
keep in health. A sixty-pound lamb requires just about one pound 
of digestible matter per day, and this is easily obtained from two 
pounds of grain which is almost always corn. For roughness to feed 
with this grain they usually use timothy hay, but good straw is con¬ 
sidered about as good. 
In Colorado sheep-feeding, hay has a much different use. It is 
so largely nitrogenous and so palatable that a large part of the growth 
and fattening comes from the hay. 
In feeding southern lambs they are put on hay alone from one to 
three weeks and then grain feeding begins. In the feeding of sheep 
on a large scale, the grain is fed in a separate corral. The sheep are 
kept in bunches of about four hundred, their grain is put in feed 
troughs, the gates are opened, and they are allowed about ten minutes 
to eat their grain, then driven back and the next bunch brought in. 
By this method all the sheep have a chance to get some grain, and 
even the greediest sheep can not get very much. 
The first grain feed is merely a sprinkling in the trough to get the 
sheep used to it. The principal skill in feeding sheep is in increasing the 
grain so gradually that the sheep eat it greedily all the time. Most 
feeders use pails and reckon feed by the number of bucketfuls fed 
per day. A bucketful of twenty pounds to four hundred sheep twice 
a day is one-tenth of a pound per day, and this is as much of an in¬ 
crease as it is considered safe to make at any one time, and it is custo¬ 
mary to increase only one-half of this. 
Lambs put in the pens in November will receive their first grain 
at the beginning of December and for the first week will get less than 
one-tenth of a pound per day per head, that is, the feeder w r ill use a 
week in getting them up from nothing to one-tenth of a pound. The 
rest of the month to the first of January they will not go over one- 
fourth pound. Some hold through the whole month of January on 
one-fourth pound, wdiile some gradually increase through the month 
to one-half pound. 
This is all considered preparatory, and real grain feeding begins 
the first of February. Feeders vary in the speed with which they in¬ 
crease the grain; but by the first of March few will be feeding less 
than one pound, and the sheep are kept on full feed from then until 
they go to market. If nothing but wheat is fed, it is hard to get 
sheep to eat over a pound per day per head. By the addition of some 
other grain and by feeding three times per day, they can be brought 
