CHAPTER XIII. 



CONCENTRATED FEEDING STUFFS. 



The most valuable feeding stuffs are linseed cake, cotton cake, 

 Soya bean cake (with oil reduced to 1 per cent., as the oil has 

 dangerous properties), special feeding cakes and mixtures sold for 

 sheep food, wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, maize, lentils, pea husk, 

 malt, malt culms, bran, rice, and linseed. Fenugreek, ginger, and 

 other spices are employed to give an aromatic and enticing flavour 

 to other foods. The terms cake and corn are used somewhat 

 indiscriminately in some districts, farmers frequently saying that 

 they are giving their sheep so much " cake," when a portion of it 

 is " corn," or so much " corn " when some of it is " cake." What 

 they mean to imply is that they are giving a certain quantity of rich 

 concentrated food. 



Linseed cake is the best individual concentrated food. It contains 

 flesh -forming and fat-forming constituents in good proportions, and 

 the oil acts beneficially on the bowels. The ease and safety with 

 which it can be given makes it very popular with flockmasters, 

 and this tends to keep the price somewhat higher than that of a 

 mixture of other foods of the same value, which can be prepared 

 by any one knowing the constituents of cake, and of the other 

 articles on the market. But it can be given to dangerous excess. 



Cotton cake is sold in two forms, known as " decorticated " and 

 " undecorticated." The former is freed of husk, and in the latter 

 the husk is left. The feeding value of the decorticated is much 

 greater than that of the undecorticated ; it is richer in feeding 

 constituents, and is not so astringent. It should be broken very 

 small, as almost all samples are hard ; those containing hard, 

 brown patches varying in size from a bean to a half-crown in 

 circumference are particularly dangerous, as these pieces are almost 

 indigestible, causing great irritation in the stomachs of old sheep, 

 and frequently prove fatal to young sheep. These hard pieces must 

 therefore be broken, and for this reason the cake should not be 

 given in lumps larger than a bean. The astringent principle 

 found in undecorticated cake makes it a suitable food in some 

 forms of scour. All cakes should be broken small, but it is of 



