246 The Management of Sheep Stock 



of beans. A night fold of rape, rape and mustard, or early turnips, 

 affords a capital change after the ewes have range over the stubbles, 

 seed-grounds, and pastures during the day, and may be safely 

 used to enable the farm to carry a larger breeding flock. 



As winter comes on the ewes may be kept in thriving condi- 

 tion on a little dry food, hay, or straw, in addition to a very 

 moderate quantity of roots. The practice formerly so common 

 of stuffing breeding ewes with roots is most extravagant, most 

 unnatural, and most unhealthy. A good turnip year in Nor- 

 folk was invariably followed by a bad lambing season. The 

 great secret of management, and one of the simplest means of 

 increasing our sheep stock, is to do with the minimum of roots 

 and the maximum of dry food, as straw, chaff, »S:c., making the 

 latter palatable, if necessary, with a small (juantity of artificial 

 food. It is stated in Morton's ' Cvclopirdia of Agriculture' that 

 a ewe will consume daily from one-tlilrd to one-fourth of its live 

 weight of roots, when supplied with these alone, i. e. from 25 to 

 30 lbs. daily. Of this bulk of food nine-tenths is water ; the 

 temperature of which water, in the winter, is seldom many degrees 

 above the freezing point. How much of the food of the animal 

 must be burned away, so to speak, in order to raise this mass to 

 the temperature of the body? If, moreover, the animal is lying 

 or standing on wet ground, which can hardly be avoided, the body 

 becomes so chilled externally as well as internally that the foetus 

 is starved : a number of dead, or pot-bellied, and weakly lambs 

 is the result, especially from shearling ewes. The only wonder 

 should be that any escape. An interesting proof of the chilling 

 effects of large quantities of roots Avas given by Lord Berners 

 during a discussion on the management of sheep at Hanover- 

 square. He said : " One day I found in a yard twenty or thirty 

 bullocks tied up and shivering dreadfully. I asked the man in 

 attendance what Avas the cause of this? And he replied, 'Oh 

 yes, they always be so after eating so many turnips.' I at once 

 ordered the quantity of turnips to be reduced and gave the 

 animals dry food, and there was no more shivering afterwards." 



The object of this essay is to point out the best means of in- 

 creasing sheep stock. Here, then, is one way : we must make 

 one acre of turnips keep twice as many sheep as hitherto, in a far 

 more healthy condition. Last winter in too many cases the diffi- 

 culty was to find any roots at all ; but great and lasting good may 

 be anticipated from the evil then felt. I saw many flocks during 

 the past winter living on damp chaff, with a little artificial food, 

 and doing as well as could be wished, with every prospect of a 

 healthy produce and plenty of milk. I have long desired to see 

 an economical plan of pulping roots devised, as the animal might 

 then be induced to eat a large quantity of straw-chaff, rendered 



