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Show Shed-Born Lambs Cut Sheep Losses On Utah Ranches Each year the ranches and ranges of U,ah approximately 2,-000.000 2,-000.000 lambs are born. Of this number, about 200.000 are dropped drop-ped in sheds, according to Alma C. Esplin. professor of sheep husbandry at the Utah State Agricultural Ag-ricultural college. Lambs born in sheds in early spring bring higher prices on -the market and offer several other advantages to sheep producers. Shed lambs born in late winter or early spring are soon moved to feed yards where they grow market size on milk and grain in 100 to 120 days. Under good care and careful feeding, lambs will gain from .7 to .8 pound per day and thus reach a sufficient market weight of 85 to 90 pounds by late spring or early summer. Lambs marketed early in the season usually bring from one to three cents more per pound than those sold later in the year, Professor Prof-essor Esplin explains. Shed-lambed herds average up to 130 percent as compared to 80 percent obtained on the open range. Early lambing is also advantageous ad-vantageous because the ranges can be more economically used. Ewes nursing lambs during hot weather require succulent feed while a ewe without a lamb can thrive on coarse feed. Ewes fed economically in the summer can give alfalfa, silage, and barley in the winter and still obtain a gross of $10 to $15 per etee. This proceedure also enables en-ables the farmer to market his feed at a high price, and make use of farm labor ordinarly idle in the winter. In the United States one-fourth of the 30,000,000 lambs go to market mar-ket in April, May, and June. Winter lambs are produced in large numbers in California, Idaho, Ida-ho, and the eastern states. Before 1900 the sheep industry was largely dependent upon wool for its income, but since that time, the meat of the industry has increased in importance, while wool prices has remained rather stationary. The herds of today are made up of productive ewes while the herd of the nineteenth century had about equal numbers of breeding and weathers. In 1880 the cost per sheep was 50 cerjts, in 1911, two dollars, and now eight dollars. dol-lars. In 1850 there were 3,262 sheep in the Utah territory while the present figure stands at approximately ap-proximately 2,000,000. |