SHEEP. 239 



being used for tte storage of hay. The sheep stables underneath should be at 

 least seven or eight feet high, A room large enough to hold one hundred and 

 fifty Merinos may be partitioned across the middle by feeding racks, and 

 seventy-five sheep kept on each side — their outside yards being also divided — 

 but not more than one hundred and fifty ought to breathe the atmosphere of the 

 same general apartment, however it may be divided on the floor. The rooms 

 should be well lighted, capable of abundant ventilation, and that ventilation 

 constantly employed. Confined, impure air is highly injurious to sheep, and 

 perfectly fatal if a dangerous epizootic makes its appearance in the flock. The 

 slatted box-rack is now generally preferred in sheep barns and yards. The sta- 

 bles should be kept well littered down, and should be thoroughly cleaned out 

 at least three times during the winter, so that the sheep should not lie, especially 

 during thaws, on fermenting beds of manure. It is well, at intermediate period^, 

 to scatter gypsum over the manure before covering it with fresh straw, as this 

 absorbs the escaping gases, and adds greatly to the value of the manure. 

 Sheepyards should, if practicable, be on dry gravelly ground, and should have 

 at least three times as much area as the stables. They should have high, tight 

 fences on the sides most exposed to severe winter winds, and should be kept 

 well littered down. Habitual exposure to mud and filth is highly injurious to 

 sheep. 



CONFINING SHEEP TO YARDS. 



The close confinement of sheep to stables and small yards operates on them 

 as it does on all other domestic animals : it renders them torpid in habit, and 

 promotes the taking on of fat and flesh. This is well for fattening sheep, 

 but not for breeding ewes. The want of exercise and the increase of condition 

 promotes that tendency to plethora which is natural to pregnancy, and ^'though 

 the evil efi"ects of this are not always visible in the offspring, yet there come 

 seasons when other co-operating conditions render it highly destructive. The 

 lambs are yeaned small and weak, and those that live are of but little value. 

 Breeding ewes should have exercise by having access, at proper times, to a 

 field, or obtain it in some other way. 



WATER AND SALT. 



Water is indispensable to sheep fed on dry feed in the winter, and they should 

 have constant access to it. Salt is also indispensable to vigorous health. It is 

 improper to salt sheep-hay heavily when it is put in the mow or stack, or to 

 brine all their hay for them at intervals, because in either case the instincts of 

 the animal are not left to guide its consumption. Salt should bQ placed in 

 boxes in the sheep-house so that they can eat it at will ; or the orts taken from 

 the rack may be brined and put in a large rack kept for that purpose where the 

 sheep can come to it at their pleasure. 



AMOUNT OF FOOD CONStHVIED AND VALUE OF DIFFERENT KINDS. 



It is estimated that all sheep daily consume, in the average winter weather 

 of the northern States, about one pound of hay, or its equivalent, for every 

 thirty pounds of their own live weight. All that they will eat of meadow hay 

 is about the amount of nutrition demanded by the Merino sheep in good, plump, 

 store condition. If a portion of more concentrated food like grain, is given, its 

 excess of nutrition m'ay be safely counterbalanced by feeding a corresponding 

 amount of food less nutritious than hay, as, for example, straw. Barley and 

 oat straw, if cut and cured green, are highly relished by sheep. Wheat straw 

 is less so, and they will eat but little besides the chaff and heads of it, if they 

 can obtain other food. Rye straw, unless chopped fine and mixed with meal, 

 is wholly unfitted for sheep feed. Pea-haulm, if cured green, is an admirable 

 fodder, but dry and dead, as it is generally gathered, it is wholly valueless 



