212 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



of fodder, but far too frequently such saving of fod- 

 der is the death of the sheep. 



Another thing that occasions great injury to our 

 flocks is the keeping too many together. Observa- 

 tion must have convinced every farmer that a small 

 flock of sheep will, with the same feeding, do much 

 better than a large one, and that fron) Ibrty to sixty 

 is as many as can be advantageously kept together; 

 yet it is nothing uncommon for men who call them- 

 selves good farmers to keep from one hundred and 

 fifty to three hundred in a flock. 



Another great defect in the common treatment of 

 sheep arises from there not being proper attention 

 paid to the individual health and strength of the ani- 

 mals when flocks are divided into sections. These 

 things should be looked to with great care, since to 

 put a few weak and sickly sheep with a flock of 

 strong, hearty ones, is not only to ensure the loss 

 of the former, but frequently to endanger the safety 

 of the latter by the spread of disease. In such 

 cases, the weak ones, which require the best of the 

 food given to the flock, are obliged to be content 

 with the refuse of the whole, or such as has been 

 rejected or trampled on by the strong ; and the re- 

 sult is as might be expected from such an unskilful 

 mode of management. 



Every man who keeps sheep should have one de- 

 partment of his flock devoted to his weak or sickly 

 animals ; and, as soon as he discovers one coming 

 under either of these classes, it should be immedi- 

 ately taken and placed where it can receive more 

 attention and better food than is required by those 

 that remain strong. Sheep, when thus put into the 

 hospital, as this division may be termed, should be 

 fed with fine hay, roots cut fine and salted, oats in 

 the sheaf, or an occasional handful of dry com ; 

 and if, every few days, a quantity of pine or hem- 

 lock tops be given them, the eff"ect will be good, aa 

 they furnish a green, and, for any sheep, a healthy 

 change of food. 



