192 



MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP. 



enough, and of proper age (about eight weeks old) for 

 slaughter, and send them to the market during December 

 and three or four succeeding months, at prices which 

 vary from one guinea to four, and the rest of the year 

 at about two guineas each. This is severe work for 

 the ewes, and some of them die from exhaustion. 

 However, care is taken that they have plenty of food ; 

 for when green food (viz. turnips, cole, rye, tares, 

 clover, &c.) begins to fail, brewers' grains are given 

 them in troughs, and second-crop hay in racks, as well 

 to support the ewes as to supply the lambs with plenty 

 of milk ; for if that should not be abundant, the lambs 

 would become stunted, in which case no food would 

 fatten them. 



" A lamb-house 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 three 

 coops of different sizes at each end, and so constructed 

 as to divide the lambs according to their ages."* 



In the county of Wicklow it is the practice to 

 divide the twenty-four hours by four equal periods, 

 and to feed the lambs with ewe's milk and cow's milk 

 alternately. When commencing with cow's milk, a 

 quarter of a pint is given, twice a-day, to each lamb, 

 and this is gradually increased to a pint, exclusive of 

 the milk from the ewe. This method of feeding has 

 been cavilled at, but I think unjustly, as the ewe is 

 thus saved from the bad effects of exhaustion, and the 

 lambs are fit for the butcher when six weeks old, or 

 50oner. 



* Middlesex Report, p. 355. 



