10 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



WINTERING SHEEP. 



Winter Arrangements and Shelter. — Late in the 

 autumn, when the grass remains frozen during the 

 most of the day, a few locks of hay or bundles of 

 stalks are sometimes flung out to the sheep. But 

 it is not commonly till the ground is covered with 

 snow that they are brought to the barn and the 

 foddering regularly commences. They are now 

 separated into two or more flocks for the winter. 

 Not more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty 

 sheep should be enclosed in one yard. Where the 

 flock contains two or three hundred sheep it is 

 commonly divided into three parcels. One of these 

 contains all the most healthy and vigorious sub- 

 jects ; the second contains those that are more thin 

 in flesh and feeble ; and the third embraces the 

 lambs. Small flocks of a hundred or less have on- 

 ly the lambs and perhaps a few invalid sheep 

 placed in an enclosure apart from the main flock. 



The strong sheep are often driven to a stack that 

 has been built upon a knoll or other part of the 

 meadow that needs fertilizing, and are there kept 

 through the winter. Sheds are here provided for 

 them, and not unfrequently they have no shelter 

 whatever save the leeward side of the stack. One 

 of my informants is under the necessity of having 

 his strong flock on a lot four miles distant from his 

 residence. They are constantly foddered but once 

 a day ; yet they are passing the winter in as good 

 condition as his other flocks. 



The "hospital flock," asit is frequently termed, 

 and also the lambs, are placed each in separate 

 yards, contiguous to the barns, where they have 

 ample sheds for their protection in inclement 

 weather, and can be regularly fed and carefully at- 

 tended to. As the raw wind of a driving storm, 

 and often snow also, penetrates to every part of 

 open sheds, and the most exposed portion of the 

 flock is therefore but little better sheltered than if 

 it was wholly out in the storm, many prefer stables 

 or enclosed sheds, with only a door for entrance. 

 And some are accustomed to close the door and 

 confine the flock every night, and not let it out at 

 all upon stormy days. As sheep in a storm habi- 

 tually stand all day huddled together in a small 

 space, it is maintained that they are better off to be 

 kept dry in a stable thirty feet long and ten in 

 width, thereby allowing but three square feet to 

 each sheep. Here they are enclosed everv night, 

 and all day in stormy weather, being fed in a rack 

 the length of one side of the stable. This space is 

 deemed sufficient for that number of sheep, and no 

 injury has ever resulted from such close confine- 

 ment, except that sometimes towards the latter part 

 of the season the wool has been slightly started on 

 the sides of some of them in consequence of rub- 

 bing so much against each other. 



Winter feeding, hay. — At the present time, hay 

 is the chief, I may say the only article of food on 

 which our flocks are sustained during the winter 

 season. Well made hay of a good quality, it is 

 admitted on all hands is the only kind that is suit- 

 able for sheep. Coarse sedge and bog hay they 

 will not touch. Short hay that grows in natural 

 meadows, containing some timothy but consists 

 mostly of red top, and a variety of other grasses, 

 is far better than the clean timothy that is cut 

 from newly seeded fields. It should be fed regu- 

 larly thrice each day. Almost every sheep yard is 

 furnished with mangers or racks for feeding, for 

 where it is scattered it is spoiled by the animals 



running over it. The common mangers in use, 

 which are about as good and economically made as 

 any, are square boxes formed of rough boards, the 

 length of theboard and about three feet wide wiihout 

 bottom or top, and with an opening the length of 

 each side, sufficiently wide to admit the head and 

 not the body of the sheep. The hay is thrown in 

 at the top, and whenever the bottom becomes filled 

 with snow, ice, and grass seeds, these boxes are 

 readily elevated or set on other spots in the yard. 



Though hay alone is mostly used for wintering 

 sheep, every farmer adapts himself to the amount 

 and supplies of this and other kinds of provender. 

 If his store of hay is short, straw is made use of 

 once a day, or unthreshed oats, which latter are 

 regarded by most of our farmers as being economi- 

 cal, thus alternated with hay, as hay alone. Corn 

 stalks too are excellent for sheep. And when we 

 recur to the fact that there is no other one of our 

 domestic 'animals that relishes so many different 

 species of vegetation as the sheep, we seemingly 

 are doing violence to its nature when we confine it 

 to dry hay alone nearly half the year. Unthreshed 

 oats, or some other food once each day, or each al- 

 ternate day, will probably keep a flock in better 

 condition than an equal value of hay alone. 



Thus, with one kind of food or another, every 

 husbandman makes it a point to keep his flock con- 

 stantly in good order, well knowing that if this is 

 not done he will be a loser thereby ere grass comes 

 in the spring. Sheep more than any other stock 

 must not be allowed to become poor. Whenever 

 a sheep gets so weak that it is unable to stand (as 

 some will where a flock is scantily kept) all efforts 

 to recruit it are unavailing. Once down it is down 

 forever. 



About five and a half months is the length of 

 time sheep require to be foddered by us ; and the 

 keeping of ten sheep is currently regarded as 

 equivalent to that of one cow. Fourteen or fifteen 

 tons of hay is the least thai a hundred sheep can be 

 carried through the winter upon, and if fed more 

 liberally they will consume twenty tons without 

 any waste. 



Expense of keeping Sheep. — As we have already 

 seen, the annual income from sheep, of the kind of 

 which most of our flocks are composed, has of late 

 years been less than one dollar and twenty-five 

 cents each. Nay, it is known to be a fact that 

 many of our common flocks in some of these years 

 have brought their owners a return of only seventy 

 or eighty cents to each sheep. How this compares 

 with the expense of their keeping we come next to 

 examine. 



The current charge for pasturage is from one and 

 a half to two cents per week. » The first of these 

 sums is the lowest for which pasturage is ever 

 hired, and it is not only upon the mountain lands 

 adjoining us in Vermont that it can be obtained for 

 that price. And the time required in driving and 

 occasionally repairing hither to see to the welfare 

 of the flock is more than equivalent to an additional 

 half cent. Sheep are pastured somewhat more than 

 half a year ; say thirty weeks. This at two cents 

 per week amounts to sixty cents. When pasturage 

 is hired by the season, however, as it sometimes 

 can be, the current charge is fifiy cents. 



Twenty-five acres of good pasture land is re- 

 quired as the least that is adequate to sustain a 

 hundred sheep. Such land is sometimes bought 

 for twenty-five dollars per acre, though it is current- 



