154 FEEDING FARM ANIMALS 



housed, and properly exercised. Where pasture is 

 not available during the winter, no feeds are quite 

 as good as alfalfa and clover hay. Either may be 

 fed once or twice a day. If but one feed of either is 

 given, then good corn stover, or millet, or even oat 

 straw, may be used as a roughage for the other feed. 

 Peas and oats, vetches, and cowpea hay, are all ex- 

 cellent roughage feeds for breeding ewes. 



When thus supplied with good fodder, the ewes 

 do not need much grain until toward the approach 

 of the lambing season. They will be in better con- 

 dition, however, at lambing time if they have been 

 fed a small quantity of grain previously. Whole oats 

 are very suitable for them, but what is better is a 

 little bran or oil cake along with the oats. Neither 

 the bran nor the oil cake is necessary, but either or 

 both will add to the efficiency of the ration. Field 

 roots are also excellent, but before lambing it is not 

 necessary to feed more than two or three pounds a 

 day. If roots cannot be had, and corn silage is avail- 

 able, it will be in order to feed silage at least once a 

 day. Either clover or alfalfa goes admirably with 

 silage. 



Sheep will take ample exercise if given the free- 

 dom of one or more fields when the snow is not deep 

 or altogether absent. It is only when snow is deep 

 and the ewes are unable to move about that they are 

 in danger of becoming too sluggish. The more 

 highly they are fed, the more sluggish they become. 

 To avoid this, it may be necessary to put some of the 

 feed in racks some distance away from the shed, but 

 preferably in a secluded and protected spot. The 



