Book VII. FATTENING OF SHEEP. lOOjj 



ity to fatten, being materially promoted by rich food, while the young animals are yet in 

 a growing state. On good land, the Leicester wethers are very generally brought to a 

 profitable state of fatness before they are eighteen months old, and are seldom kept 

 for fatting beyond the age of two years : the Highland breeds, on the other hand, though 

 prepared, by means of turnips, a year at least sooner than they could be in former times, 

 usually go to the shambles when from three to four years old. The ewes of the first de- 

 scription are commonly fatted after having brought lambs for three seasons, that is, after 

 they have completed their fourth year, and those of the small breeds, at from five to seven 

 years of age, according to circumstances. (Sup. E. Brit. art. Agr.) 



6480. The kinds of food on which sheep are fatted, are good pastures, permanent or 

 temporary, herbage crops, as clovers, tares, &c., turnips, and other roots; and linseed cake, 

 grains, or other edible refuse of the oil manufactory, brewery, and distillery. 



6481. The mode of feeding on rich pastures, herbage, and turnips, has already been 

 described when treating of these crops, and it remains only to notice the modes of using 

 grains and oil cake. These and also bran, oats, pease, and other grains and meals, 

 whether given in winter or summer, should always be accompanied with pasture or diy 

 food of some sort, especially hay. All food of this sort should be given in moveable 

 troughs, divided in the middle, so that the sheep may feed on each side, with a sloping roof 

 over them, so as[to cover the sheep's heads and necks while feeding, as wet is not only pre- 

 judicial to the sheep, but spoils the food. A rack for hay, fixed over the trough, might 

 probably be made to answer in this intention, while it would be very convenient for 

 holding that material, and preventing waste. The whole should be fixed on wheels, and 

 be made to stand steady, and a sufficient number for the quantity of sheep, be always in 

 readiness. In the fattening of wethers, the use of barley meal, with grass or some other 

 sort of green food, has likewise been found highly beneficial, and when it can be pro- 

 cured at a reasonable rate, should not be neglected, as it is quick in rendering them fat, 

 and the mutton is excellent. A pound of oil cake, or of meal per day, with hay, or 

 turnips, for each crone or wether, is reckoned a fair allowance in Lincolnshire. In the 

 report of that county, several instances of oil cake feeding are given, by M'hich it appears 

 that that sort of food fattens in a shorter time than any other, is the most suitable food 

 for fattening old sheep, and a rapid promoter of the growth of the wool. 



6482. As general rules for fattening sheep, as well as other animals, it should be made 

 a rule never to allow them to lose flesh from the earliest age, till they are sent to the 

 butcher ; that it is found of much advantage with a view to speedy fattening, as well as 

 to the economy of food, to separate a flock into divisions, corresponding with its different 

 ages, and the purpose of the owner as to the time of carrying them to market ; and that 

 the change from the food of store to fatting stock, from that which is barely capable of 

 supporting the condition which they have already attained, to that which is adapted to 

 their speedy improvement in fatting, ought to be gradual and progressive. Thus, very 

 lean sheep are never, in good management, put to full turnips in winter, nor to rich 

 pastures in summer ; they are prepared for turnips in good grass land ; often on the 

 after-grass of mown grounds, and kept on second year's leys, and afterwards a moderate 

 allowance of turnips^ if they are fatted on pastures. It is a common practice, in the 

 instance of the Leicesters, to keep all that are not meant for breeding always in a state 

 of fatness, and after full feeding on turnips through winter and spring, to finish them on 

 the first year's clover early in. summer, when the prices of meat are usually the 

 highest. 



6483. The fattening of lambs during summer, requires nothing more than keeping 

 their mothers and tliem on the richest and best pasturage, and supplying such artificial 

 food as the situation, season, or other circumstances may require ; but the fatting of lambs 

 during winter and spring, requires attention to three things, the breed, or if any breed 

 be used indifferently, the period of dropping, the lamb house, and the feeding. 



6484. With respect to the breed, as the sheep will take the ram at any season, any variety may be so 

 managed as to drop their lambs at any period of the year, but it is found by experience, that the Dorset- 

 shire sheep is easiest made to yean, and therefore this is the sort generally employed in Middlesex for 

 rearing what is called house lamb, for the metropolis. The selection of the rams for breeding the lambs 

 to be house fed, is, according to Middleton, founded on the following circumstances : the sucklers, sales- 

 men, and butchers of London, are aware that such lambs as have sharp barbs on the inside of their lips, 

 are certainly of a deep color after being butchered; and all those whose barbs are naturally blunt, do as 

 certainly produce fair meat. This knowledge has been the occasion of many lambs of the latter kind being 

 kept for rams, and sent into Dorsetshire expressly for the purpose of improving the color of the flesh of 

 house lambs, the issue of such rams can generally be warranted fair, and such meat always sells at a 

 higher price ; hence arose the mistaken notion that Middlesex rams were necessary to procure house lambs. 



6485. A lamb-house may be any close shed, cow-house, or other spare house, or, even 

 on a small scale, a roomy pigstye. But they are built on purpose by the extensive 

 dealers in this article ; and one to suckle from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and 

 eighty lambs at a time, should be seventy feet long, and eighteen feet broad, with tliree 

 coops of different sizes at each end, so constructed as to divide the lambs according to 



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