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Show Money Made Feeding Sheep More Lambs and More Wool graze out on the hills nearby free of charge. Mr. Robertson with the aid of some of his young nephews to care for the lambs, saves 20 and 30 orphan lambs each year. Mr. . Robertson offers some advice on lambing ewes on alfalfa: There should always be plenty of water accessible ac-cessible for them as they are naturally natur-ally feverish during lambing' time and when forced to go some time without, water they gulp down large quantities of water when they find it Too much water taken into the stomachs already wll filled with; rather dry hay, results in a toxic condtion which may kill m'" ewes. Two years ago Mr. KobfcT 0n lost 11 head of ewes in this manner all in a single morning. In the summe time Mr. Robertson and family live at their summer home higher up on the LaSal mountains, moun-tains, between the summer range and the hay ranches. Here he cares for his rams and orphaan lambs and sup ervises the running of his farms and sheep herds. a great deal of it in this manner and sometimes bloat as a result of eating eat-ing wet hay leaves. All of the help Robertson "requires is the herder and camp mover, which would be needed on the range anyway. any-way. These two men (usually Mexicans) Mexi-cans) can care for the sheep and ranch as well and thereby the need of. an extra man to. care for the rannches in the winter is not imperative. imper-ative. Mr. Robertson saves about $125 a year for grain which he would have to buy for his camp mules if he ran the sheep on the rang. Besides there is a great reduction in the price of supplies needed for the camp where the herders do not have to move so often. They are less in need of food they can prepare hurridly such as canned food and therefore have more time to cook dried foods which are decidely cheaper than the canned goods. Mr. Robertson has learned one very important, thing about handling the breeding ewes and feed as the result of a costly experience. He learned that in order for a ewe being fed hay to produce a strong vigorous lamb at paturition they must be given exercise ex-ercise during the gestation period or there is danger of many still births and a high per cent of weak lambs, the first year Robertson fed his ewes he didnot make them exercise enough L ; - The winter feeding of sheep, which is somewhat of an innovation in the southeastern Utah, is being regularly followed by A. M. Robertson, Mo-ab Mo-ab sheepman, at his ranch on Wilson Wil-son mesa, twenty miles eust of town How this practice is proving profitable profit-able is described in detail in an article ar-ticle published in the current edition of the Utah farmer. The article was written by B. Wendell Allred, Moab student at the Utah Agricultural college, col-lege, and son of Birt Allred, another Moab sheepman. Young Allred has secured from Mr. Robertson all of the facts pertaining to winter feed--. ing and he gives the figures to show that the practice is paying dividends T in more ways than one. The article, which will prove of interest in-terest to stockmen of this section follows : Now that sheepshearing season is at hand and the spring lambing season sea-son next door some sheepmen will proably wonder later on why their wool clip and lamb crop is lower than some neighboring sheep owner's. But outlining the sheep succes of A. M. Robertson of Grand county, Utah, resulting from his method of caring for range ewes, the reason why some men get more wool and lambs per ewe can easily be grasped. It is the general contention throughout southern and eastern Utah, where year round grazing has always been practiced, that it doesn't pay to feed range ewes hay in the winter time. When A. M. Robertson began buying hay three years ago to feed his rang? ewes during the coldest part of the winter his friends told him he was crazy for they maintained main-tained it could never be made to pay. Despite discouraging advice from his friends Mr. Robertson went through with his plans and now, after three years'- practice, he can show receipts for larger and more lambs and heavier-fleeces to substantiate his argument argu-ment that it pays to feed range ewes during the coldest part of the winter. Robertson owns three large, choice hay ranches, totaling 650 acres, on the Wilson mesa, 20 miles east of Moab at the foot of the LaSal mountains; moun-tains; although, a quarter section of his ranch is in alfalfa and the remain der is covered with large black sage brush, which) is an added asset in winter feeding as the ewes eat a lot of the sage brush and it scoures out their digestive machinery and get enough .exercise this way to keep them thriving. and as a result there was many, still born- and weak lambs. The next sea son he made exercise part of the ewe's.' daily life. When they had eaten hay until they were satisfied he had his herder drive the ewes out into the sage brush where the ewes would get enough forage and exercise exer-cise to maintain a healthy body condition. con-dition. ; As a result of forcing the ewes to take exercise Mr. Robertson got 4 per cent more lambs. He says that if the ewes cannot be driven out in a pasture or on a hill to graze and get exercise while they are. being be-ing winter fed they should be driven along a road. Plenty of water is also essential for ewes that are being fed hay. Usually in winter the reservoirs are frozen over on Robertson's (farms, but as the region is about 6,500 feet high there .is always ample clean nnow for his ewes. Snow is not as desirable as water for breeding ewes but Mr. Robertson finds that his ewes , do very well on it. By winter-feeding Mr. Robertson is not troubled with his old ewes getting poor and dropping out, as they win- , ter in excellent condition when fed , hay. with the younger sheep and do not need special care. The winter oss is also greatly curtailed by feed ing the herd hay in winter". The first year Mr. Robertson fed his herd, the winter loss was 27 during the time from weaning in the fall until docking time in the spring. The second year the loss was only 13 head for the same period. The loss of ewes at lambing time is also lessened because the ewe is in a much better condition as a result of feeding. feed-ing. Further, she is more apt to claim her lamb. During the 100 days Mr. Robertson Robert-son feeds his 1200 ewes hay, he feeds them about 265 pounds per head and the highest prices his hay has been worth at the Wilson mesa, has been ?10T00 a ton which would be , a cost of 40 cents per head. He gets about 1 3-4 to 2 pounds of wool more per head by feeding them hay than when he runs his sheep on the open range in winter, which more than pays for the hay the ewes eat. Also as a result re-sult of feeding he got a 108 per cent lambing the first year of feeding as compared with 95 per cent the year he didn't feed hay. The second year of feeding he got 112 1-2 per cent Feeding his ewes from the first of December to nearly the middle of March is really a paying proposition for Mr. Robertson as he can make nis extra wool and lambs more than pay for the hay he uses. Besides he owns his alfalfa ranches on the high mesa land where a market for his hay is inaccessible because of the cost of transportation over dangerous danger-ous roads. He can market his hay in the form of wool and mutton at a much greater profit than he can by hauling it to Moab. Winter feeding gives him a much better chance to observe his best individuals as he has been culling his herd now for four years and at present he has for his breeding stock 900 selected ewes under un-der four years old, of a superior Rambouillet-Cotswold cross. During the fore part of March Mr. Robertson moves his sheep off his ranches and has them herder in the broken area between his farms and Moab where the well sheltered canyons can-yons and rims afford sufficient new sage brush, black brush and gramma grass to maintain the herd until lamb crop as compared with a 95 per cennt the year he didn't feed. He ?ays his lambs from the ewes he winter feeds are 3 to 4 poundes larger at docking time than lambs from ewes that are range grazed in winter in spite of the fact that the lambs are of the same age. .In order to make his feeding more feasible and free from waste, Robertson Rob-ertson has constructed 20 feeding pens for his 1200 ewes. The pens are 16 ft. square and 3 1-2 ft, high with detachable sides so that they can be piled on top of one another . out of the way when not in use. On the bottom there is a board 1 inch . thick, 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long. Then there is a 10 inch space through which the sheep can put their heads to reach the hay piled on the inside of the pen. Above the 10 inch space is another board 1 inch thick, 6 inches wide and 16 ft. long which is followed follow-ed by a 20 inch space with another board 1 inch thick, 6 inches wide and 16 ft. long on the top of the pen. The sides are further braced by 3 two-by-fours. About once a week the herder hauls a load of hay and fills up the pens and every day he goes around to each of the pens and keeps fresh hay puched up within reach of the ewes as they do not thrive the best when forced to eat stems and much-ed-over hay. In order not to waste the stems that the ewes do not eat Mr. Robertsson has the herder clean the stems out of the pens each week before putting in fresh hay. Thie part that the sheep do not want is then given to surplus cows and hor-;'ss- 0n the' . ranches, numbering for the last three years about 50 head Sheep should never be fed hay scattered around on the snow, according ac-cording to Robertson, as they waste shearing time. He then shears his sheep at his home in Moab and returns re-turns them to his high land ranches where he lambs them in the alfalfa fields during May and June. As soon as one band of ewes has lambs a week or so old, the lambs are docked and sent on the National Forest where they remain under the care of Mexican Mex-ican herders all summer. By lambing his herds on his farms Mr. Robertson an care for the lambs more closely Snd their mothers will be giving much more milk for them, as a res.ult.ypf eating alfalfa. He is also in a good position to raise his orphan lambs as he has milk from a number of cows which are kept up at a very insignificent cost because they can |