316 MANAGEMENT AND FEEDING OF SHEEP 



sorption into the system of the nutrients in the food in 

 the process of assimilation. It acts as a corrective to 

 digestion overlax which results from feeding large quan- 

 tities of succulent food. It may also be made to increase 

 the consumption of food when judiciously added to the 

 same. As a result of this, increase in form or function 

 should result proportionately. 



With the exception given above (see page 315), the 

 necessity for supplying animals with salt is always pres- 

 ent and at all seasons. The effect of rain containing saline 

 influences does not extend very far inland. Hence the 

 areas thus affected are relatively limited. Even quadru- 

 peds not under domestication show a fondness for salt in 

 the extent to which they have frequented locations where 

 nature furnishes salt in the region of salt lakes. This 

 craving is intensified in animals under domestication by 

 the large quantities of food furnished to them in an artifi- 

 cial way. 



The aim should be to give animals under domestica- 

 tion access to salt at all times. They will then take no 

 more than they need, and only in such quantities as they 

 need it. It is virtually impossible in any other way to 

 meet the exact needs of the animals. This will be appar- 

 ent, first, from the fact that no two animals will take the 

 same quantity of salt though kept under conditions prac- 

 tically alike, any more than they will take exactly similar 

 quantities of food when kept under like conditions. Sec- 

 ond, the different foods fed influence the requirements of 

 salt, and no one is able to measure the extent of this in- 

 fluence exactly. Third, the changed character of the 

 ration continually exercises an influence on the consump- 

 tion of salt, and no one can measure the extent of this in- 

 fluence as the animal can. Give sheep free access to salt, 

 and they will neither take too much nor too little. 



Supplying salt in summer Salt is sometimes fur- 

 nished to sheep, more especially in summer, in the form of 

 rock salt. The objection to supplying it in this form is, 



