SHEEP HUSBANDRY' IN THE SOUTH. 



395 



Hay-Holders. — Where hay or other fodder is thrown out of the upper 

 doors of a barn into the sheep-yard, as it always must necessarily be in a 

 barn constructed like fig. 38, or any mere 7^a?/-barn, or where it is thi'owu 

 from a barrack or stack, the sheep immediately rush on it, trampling it and 

 soiling it, and the succeeding forkfulls fall on their backs, filling their wool 

 with dust, seed and chaff. This is avoided by hay -holders — yards 10 feet 

 square — either portable by being made of posts and boards, or simply a 

 pen of rails, placed under the doors of the barns, and by the sides of each 

 stack or barrack. The hay is pitched into the holder, in fair weather 

 enough for a day's foddering at a time, and is taken from this by forkfulls 

 and placed in the racks. I would here offer a necessary caution in rela- 

 tion to the use of rails ov poles, for stack-pens or hay -holders. The poles 

 should be so small as to entii'ely prevent the sheep from inserting their beads 

 between them after hay. A sheep will often insert its head where the 

 opening is wide enough for that purpose, shove it along or get crowded 

 along, to where the opening is not wide enough to withdraw the head, and 

 it will hang thei'e until observed and extricated by the shepherd. If, as it 

 often happens, it is thus caught when its fore parts are elevated by climb- 

 ing up the side of the pen, it will continue to lose its fore footing in its 

 strusfffles.and will soon choke to death. 



Winter Dry Feed for Sheep. — The proper dry winter fodder for sheep 

 has already been repeatedly alluded to, in general terms. Volumes have 

 been expended on this subject, particularly in Germany — and curious and 

 elaborate systems of feeding given. In Germany great stress is laid on 

 variety in the winter fodder. In the German Farmer's Encyclopaedia, the 

 following table of the proper variations and amounts of feed is given by 

 Petri. 



TABLE 15. 



The same writer gives the following as the proper winter feed of a 

 ewe, the month preceding lambing : 



(755) 



