SHEEP, SWIXE, AXP OTHER DOMESTIC AXIilALS. 427 



manure and preserve its good qualities for the soil. A few 

 cords of seasoned peat, filled in each autumn, and hauled out 

 in the spring, collect the urine, and make a more valuable 

 manure, cord for cord, than ordinary barnyard manure. Sheep 

 should not be closely confined all wmter. A run on the snow in 

 the middle of a mild day is exceedingly beneficial. And if the 

 snow^ is off a couple of hours' nibble at the grass will do more 

 to keep the system in good condition that any nostrums, such 

 as tar, alum, etc. Especially on the ewes with lambs this short 

 hour of relaxation, whenever the weather will admit, is of incal- 

 culable benefit. Says Randall, " I urge letting out breeding 

 ewes on the fields for this limited time each day, (when the 

 weather admits,) because no animal more intensely craves a por- 

 tion of green food in winter, and I consider nature or instinct 

 a first-rate judge of its own wants ; because the small portion of 

 green food obtained from the fields can exert no injurious effects 

 in any direction whatever, while it prevents the costiveness 

 peculiarly incidental to pregnancy, and, by keeping the bowels 

 in an open and regular state, has a strong tendency to avert all 

 unhealthy action or agencies ; because the travelling about and 

 digging for green feed affords a most necessary and healthful 

 exercise ; and, finally, because a neglect ' of these ordinances 

 which nature has inculcated,' for the guidance of the pregnant 

 ewe, has been followed by wide-spread disaster." 



For those who feed turnips, as every sheep owner ought, onco 

 a week for exercise is all the escape required. A sled load of 

 hay can be drawn off a half a mile or so, and the sheep allowed 

 to follow it out and back. 



Winter Feed. Sheep require about three per cent, per day 



of their weight in hay or its equivalent, that is, two pounds for 



a sheep weighing sixty-five to seventy-five pounds ; three 



pounds for one in the vicinity of one hundred pounds, etc. 

 26 



