90 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



[Chap. I. 



tlicin for nine dollars and twenty cents each, lliey cost liitn two dollars. 

 Sheep fed with oil-cake meal or irraiii eat but little salt, make richer manure, 

 more wool, and more carcass, lie gives usually one ])Ound of oil-meal when 

 feeding with straw, and half a jiound with hay. If there sliould bo any 

 signs of foot-rot in the flock, he pares the hoof, and rubs into the sores a 

 salve of blue vitriol and lanl. In very hot weather lie mixes tar with the 

 salve, to make it adhere. Sheep are never let out of the yards in winter, 

 but to the yard they have free access at all times from the low, open elieds, 

 and every part of the sheds and yard arc dee])ly bedded with clean straw. 

 The shepherd, instead of wading through a slough worse than that described 

 by Bunyan, walks on a soft bed of straw, so clean at any time as not to soil 

 the white fleece of the cleanest Leicester. 



"Wni. 11. Ladd, of Ohio, says: " My practice is to turn the lambs in with 

 their mothers, after they have been separated some twelve hours, and as soon 

 as they nurse, separate them again ; then, after twenty-four hours, allow 

 them to nurse once more. Since I have adopted this plan, I have never had 

 a ewe's udder injured. Lambs should have a very little salt frcrpiently, 

 when first weaned, as the herbage lacks tlie large proportion of salt which 

 the mother's milk contains. But great care sliould be nsed not to give them 

 much salt at once, or it will set them to purging; and if a lamb commences 

 to purge soon after being taken from the mother, it seldom, if ever, recovers 

 from it. 



" Lambs that come early are invariably the largest, strongest, and most 

 healthy ; consequently they are the best breeders. The ewe that has her 

 lamb early has suflicient time to get in good order before winter, and after 

 the lamb is weaned, she is not subject to weakness and disease, as those of 

 late weaning, and is consequently a better breeder the next season. Poor, 

 late feeble lambs and ewes should never be permitted to breed, for if such 

 are, it invariably follows that the flock will degenerate. Generating or 

 breeding ewes should be carefully selected. Ewes sometimes continue strong 

 and productive until twelve or fifteen years of age ; this depends on their 

 general health and constitution." 



120. Age of 8hccp for Muttou. — A late English writer says: "A sheep, to 

 be in high order for the palate of the epicure, should not be killed earlier _ 

 than five years old, at which age the mutton will be rich and succulent, of a 

 dark color, and full of the richest gravy — whereas, if only two years old, it 

 is flabby, pale, and flavorless." 



121. Grub in Shecpi — Take one quart of whisky and two ounces of yellow 

 snufl', mix, and warm to blood-heat. Let one man hold the sheep, and 

 another take a small syringe, and discharge about a teaspoonful of the mix- 

 ture into each nostril. It is said to be a certain cure, 



122. Gross and Net Weight of Sheep. — The nsual estimate of gross and not 

 weight of sheep is, that the dressed carcass will weigh one half as much as 

 the gross weight, and therefore, when the sheep are sold at, say five cents a 

 ]iound alive, the price is equivalent to ten cents a pound for the meat, sinking 



