LEICESTER EWES AND LAMBS. 145 



The ewes and gimmers, after January, should be provided 

 with turnips or swedes sufficient to serve them until four o'clock 

 every afternoon ; should snow come on while the sheep are 

 getting turnips, hay should be provided for all, as it enables 

 them to digest their more succulent food, which, without this 

 addition, would be liable to produce illness. Fourteen pounds 

 of old-land hay per diem to every score of sheep in winter, but 

 as spring advances they will gradually eat less. 



At this period of the year the shejiherd must be careful not 

 to give his charge any salt, either to lick, or used witli hay 

 which has been salted, as it is a well-established fact that salt 

 is apt to produce abortion. If turnips are given in unlimited 

 quantities to ewes in lamb, they are likewise liable to produce 

 abortion, particularly if the season is mild, and vegetation rank 

 and forward. To counteract the eii'ects of the superfluous 

 moisture in the turnips hay is given. A week or ten days 

 before the first of the ewes are expected to lamb, all are brought 

 into a lea-field near the steading. Here Aberdeen yellow turnips 

 are given, and to each ewe by degrees, of oats and bran mixed, 

 half a pound, or of cotton cake the same quantity, the latter 

 feeding-stuff being rightly considered best for milk, and may 

 generally be bought cheaper than oats. 



By thus keeping the ewes constantly in good condition with- 

 out having them at any time too fat, there should be no danger 

 of incurring inflammatory disease. It is quite true that the 

 digestive organs do not easily, and all at once, accommodate 

 themselves to a change from low to high diet. But the great 

 point is to guard against having the ewes in too low or too high 

 a condition, so that when they begin to receive oats or cake 

 there may be no sudden change, but only a gradual bringing 

 forward at the right time. The majority of shepherds prefer 

 their charge to be in good condition, rather than thin, at lamb- 

 ing time. Indeed, they would sooner run the risk of having 

 them really fat than have the trouble of tending thin, poor- 

 conditioned ewes, wkich neitlier thrive themselves, nor are able 

 to bring forward their lambs early by supplying them with a 

 sufficient quantity of milk. 



One of the chief points for consideration in sheep-breeding is 

 that of producing healthy, strong-constitutioned, easily fattened 

 lambs, and it is well known that unless a lamb thrive from birth 

 it will never make a really good sheep. However much a 

 plethoric condition may conduce to disease in wethers or store 

 sheep of all kinds, yet the reverse is the case with the pregnant 

 ewe. The ilock that has been badly kept, the animals being 

 poor and thin at time of parturition, is that in which the greatest 

 losses, both of ewes and lambs, will take place. 



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