Lamb and Wool Notes
By Dick Perue
Several short stories, entitled “Lamb and Wool Notes,” in the April 1, 1903 issue of The Wyoming Industrial Journal noted:
A shipment of lambs from Wyoming last week brought the highest price ever paid for lambs in the Omaha market, when the shipment was disposed of for $7.50 per hundred pounds. Wyoming-fed lambs are now considered the finest obtainable.
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Ralph McGibbon, the Red Buttes sheepman, was on the Chicago market recently with two carloads of Laramie Plains Lambs, which averaged 88 pounds and sold the lot at $7.85 per hundred pounds, which is believed to be the highest price recorded in 20 years.
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U.S. Marshal F. A. Hadsell has just sold through the commission house of W. W. Wilson of Chicago (Mr. Wilson is a brother of Secretary of Agriculture) the first shipment of 500 wethers out of a total of 3,000 he is feeding at $6.30, which is the highest price yet paid in the market. They weighed on an average 110 pounds and were two-year-olds, which had been shorn on March 18. Last fall Mr. Hadsell was offered the top of the market for these, and that was only $2.65 per head.
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Shearing has been commenced in Carbon County. At the Miller pens, 110,000 sheep will be sheared; at William Daley’s pens, 75,000; at Cow Creek, 50,000; at Fort Steele, 88,000; at Walcott, 60,000; at Medicine Bow, 50,000; a total of nearly 450,000 sheep. To these figures should be added 350,000 sheep, that will be shorn at private pens.
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The annual meeting of the Eastern Wyoming Woolgrowers Association was held recently, at which officers were elected as followed: President John T. Williams, Vice President John E. Higgins, Secretary and Treasurer Robert F. Potter.
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The Converse County Wool Growers Association has offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the men who recently raided the Storrie sheep camps on Hat Creek.
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The Natrona County Wool Growers Association has assessed its members 25 cents each for a fund with which they will prosecute persons bringing scabby sheep into the county.
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The annual wool sales at Cody City will be held on June 1 and June 28 this year. The indications are the sales there this season will be much larger than ever before.
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A big steam shearing plant with 28 machines is being established at Corbett, the center of the sheep-shearing district of Big Horn County.
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Sheep are being lambed under sheds in Fremont and Natrona counties. The experiment is proving a success.
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A recent shipment from Wheatland of alfalfa-fed sheep topped the Chicago market at $7.60 per hundred.
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Eight cents will be the average price paid for shearing sheep in Wyoming this season.
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M. Gibson of Wheatland will feed 10,000 lambs next season.
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Australia has about 87,000,000 sheep.