58 THE SHEPHERD'S MANUAL. 



litter daily thrown down in the shed. Hardwood sawdust, dry 

 seasoned peat or swamp muck, forest leaves, dried spent tan- 

 bark, long or cut straw, chaff, or even sand, make very good litter 

 and absorbents. If a supply of these materials can be procured, 

 sufficient for daily use in a crowded pen or yard, the straw, which 

 would otherwise be needed for this purpose, may with great 

 economy be reserved for fodder. If straw or corn-fodder cut into 

 small pieces, is fed in the racks once a day, there will be a certain 

 portion pulled out on to the floor which will add to the litter. If 

 straw is used for litter, it should be cut into chaff, which will 

 much facilitate the removal of the manure in the spring. This is 

 especially convenient if pea straw is used, for when a quantity of 

 pea straw and manure is trodden together, they form such a 

 tangled mass that it is a most tiresome labor to fork it up and re- 

 move it. Corn-stalks should not be thrown under foot for the 

 same reason. If it is thought proper to remove the litter and 

 dung periodically, every week for instance, then the floor should 

 afterwards receive a heavy coating of dry litter. In case the ma- 

 nure is removed, it should not on any account be heaped in the 

 yard. It will undergo an active fermentation and become hot, 

 giving forth clouds of vapor in damp weather, and at all times 

 pungent gases. Some of the sheep will choose the manure heap 

 to lie upon at nights, and every one that is suffered to do this will 

 inevitably sicken, and become affected with catarrh or pneumonia, 

 or lose its wool in patches. Either the litter should not be cleaned 

 out at all, or it should be removed to a distance from the yards. 

 It is easy to manage matters either way, so that the air of the shed 

 will be pure and free from offensive smell, if proper attention is 

 given, and the shepherd is watchful and careful of the condition 

 of the floors of the shed. 



The feed-racks should be so made that the sheep can procure 

 their feed without tearing the wool from their necks or filling 

 their fleeces with dust, chaff, or hay-seed. The floor of the loft 

 should be made close and tight, using either matched boards or 

 double boards laid so as to break joints, and prevent the dropping 

 of dust from above. A rack for hay or straw should be made in 

 the manner shown at figure 27; it should be 3i feet high at the 

 front. The bars are only three inches apart. They should be 

 made of ash, chestnut, or oak strips, dressed and smoothly sand- 

 papered, and an inch thick by one and a quarter wide. The front 

 of the rack should slope backwards at the top 3 or 4 inches. This 

 prevents hay or clover dust from falling out upon the sheeps' 

 heads. At the rear of the rack sloping boards are fitted, so that 



