INFERIOR RAMS A MISTAKE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1893, 18 March 1880, Page 3

INFERIOR RAMS A MISTAKE.

I wish to caution sheep breeders (and especially those who have but small flocks) against the ruinous practice of using poor rams, as it is a losing game every time. Suppose a man has but fifty owe 3 to breed, the difference in the lambs will pay for the cost of a good ram, for a good ram will get a lamb that will produce at least one pound more wool to the head each year than a poor one, besides giving you a much finer carcase. Now, suppose you will ruise fifty lambs each year for two years (as long as you ought to use the same ram) you will have 100 lambs. Now, lib each year, for three years, will make 3001 bof wool, that at the very low price o f 22 per cents per pound, will bring you 66 dol. ; besides you will have a flock of young sheep that will bring at least from 50 cents to 1 dol. more per head than those your scrub ram would have brought you, m king in this instance another gain of 50 or 100 do!, in favor of a good ram. Now this will make a difference in the. produce from 50 ewe=< for two seasons of considerably over 100 dol. in hard cash, to say nothing about the pleasure of caring for a good flock over that, of a poor one. I think such a buck as you could buy for half the amount of the above profit would make a greater difference than I have figured on in the above. So you see that, instead of being too poor to buy a good ram, you are too poor to not buy one. Always get the best, and it will pay a profit for raising, while scrubs won't pay their keep. Don't say that my estimate is too high—it iB, in fact, too low.—lowa correspondent to "Rural World."