HOW TO PREVENT BLOATING
Pasturing sheep or lambs on alfalfa is dangerous, although there are sheep raisers who make it a main reliance. One man reports absolute freedom from loss for several years, and his method is to have his sheep pen adjoining the alfalfa field and early in April when the alfalfa is just beginning to put on its green, he arranges a “creep” for the lambs to go through into the field, and lets them stay there at pleasure. They soon wean themselves; the “creep” is then closed and a safe pen in the alfalfa field is used for shelter from rains and protection from dogs. When necessary to fasten them in at night to guard against dogs or wolves, he cuts green alfalfa each evening to give them with a little grain in the morning before turning them back to the field. The lambs grow rapidly and none ever bloat. Nevertheless, most sheep raisers will continue to reckon alfalfa pasture too expensive when it costs so many animals for the privilege of its use. Safety is the exception, and not the rule.
Owners of large flocks of sheep claim to be able to market lambs from alfalfa pasture, or when soiled, at one-half to one-third the cost of maintenance with any other crop. Green or cured it seems to hasten development and the lambs are in fine condition for fattening in October, or the ewes to put into the breeding pen.
The Nebraska station in a winter experiment of 98 days with one hundred 50-pound lambs, divided into different lots and variously fed with prairie hay, alfalfa hay, shelled corn, wheat bran, oats and linseed meal figured at the prices then current, reached these results:
1. The alfalfa-fed lambs consumed 1.34 pounds of alfalfa hay and one pound of grain per day as against .88 pound of prairie hay and .89 pound of grain consumed by the prairie hay fed lambs.
2. The alfalfa-fed lambs made fifty-two per cent greater gains than the lambs fed prairie hay and the same grain ration.
3. The lambs fed prairie hay with corn and 16 per cent of oil meal made 26 per cent larger gains than the lots fed prairie hay with a grain ration of shelled corn, or shelled corn with 25 per cent of bran or oats added.
In the twenty-fifth annual report of the Ontario agricultural college are some interesting reports on feeding lambs on various foods. The feeding periods were 74 days for the first experiment and 42 for the second.
By these tests alfalfa hay was shown to be slightly better for the lambs in every way than clover hay under practically equivalent conditions.
The first and second cuttings of alfalfa were equal in value; the third cutting was slightly better than the first.
W. L. Carlyle, dean of the Colorado agricultural college declares alfalfa hay is the basis of the feeding industry in northern Colorado. “Without alfalfa our agriculture would be of very little moment. Alfalfa forms the basis of all our sugar-beet growing. It not only enriches the soil in which it grows, but prepares it for the growing of sugar-beets in a way that no other crop or system or cultivation can, and while doing this preparatory work it yields an enormous tonnage of the most valuable feed for fattening sheep and cattle. Usually lambs are given free access to the hay and are allowed to eat all of it that they will.”
Lamb feeding in northern Colorado has been carried on quite extensively for a number of years, and with such success that “Fort Collins lambs” are recognized in the eastern markets as superior to anything that is shipped from any other section of the country. The name “Fort Collins sheep” has extended to all of northern Colorado, just as the “Greeley potato” is the term given to all potatoes grown in the northern part of the state.
In recent years many thousands of old ewes have been fed at the various sugar factories upon beet pulp, alfalfa hay and corn. The old ewes thrive much better upon the beet pulp than the lambs or younger sheep. It produces a very desirable sappiness of flesh, and when these sheep have been on this feed with alfalfa hay for two or three months and are then finished with corn, they bring the highest price on the market.