CHAPTER XXX 



GENERAL PROBLEMS IN SHEEP HUSBANDRY 



The sheep is the plant scavenger of the farm. Because of its dainty 

 manner of nibbling herbage, we might suppose that its likes were few 

 and dislikes many, yet no domestic animal is capable of living on more 

 kinds of food. Grasses, shrubs, roots, the cereal grains, leaves, bark, 

 and in times of scarcity seaweed, the resinous, pungent leaves of ever- 

 greens, fish, and meat, all serve as food for this wonderfully adaptive 

 animal. While horses and cattle eat only about half the plants con- 

 sidered weeds, less than one-tenth of them are refused by sheep. They 

 even prefer some weeds, when yet succulent, to the common grasses. 

 Sheep graze more closely than other stock, and if many are confined 

 to one field every green thing is at length consumed. When closely 

 pastured on cut-over timber lands they derive much nourishment from 

 the leaves, bark, and twigs, destroying the brush nearly as effectively 

 as goats. The feces of the sheep show the finest grinding of any of the 

 farm animals, and as they relish most weed seeds this further fits them 

 as weed destroyers. As sheep graze, their droppings are distributed 

 more uniformly than with other stock. At nightfall they instinctively 

 seek higher, usually poorer, land and thus leave their droppings where 

 most needed. Thru increasing the fertility of the pastures it grazes, 

 this animal has won the title of "The Golden Hoof." 



823. The place of sheep on the farm. On most stock farms in the 

 corn belt and eastward, sheep raising is not the main farming enterprise, 

 but a medium-sized flock, that will profitably fit into the other lines of 

 farming, is often maintained. Because sheep will eat almost any kind of 

 forage, a flock of 25 to 50 breeding ewes can get no small part of 

 their feed from material which would otherwise be wasted. They will 

 clean up the lanes, stubble fields, and fence rows, helping to keep weeds 

 from becoming a pest. Tho the cost of maintaining them may be lowered 

 thru utilizing such waste products, one must not expect profitable pro- 

 duction from such feed alone. On rough or hilly land that cannot be 

 economically tilled sheep may be the main live stock of the farm. 



Sheep have many other advantages for the farmer. Only a relatively 

 small investment is necessary to start in sheep husbandry, since the 

 foundation animals cost but little and the flock increases rapidly. Sheep 

 require neither expensive barns nor implements and only a minimum of 

 care and attention during the busy summer season. In wool and in 

 the flesh of her offspring, the ewe gives double returns each year. With 

 fair prices, the wool pays for her maintenance, leaving as profit all in- 



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