206 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



Twenty feet is quite sufficient width for any sheep 

 house. This permits four feed racks, a double one in the 

 center, and one at each side, or a row of lamb pens on one 

 side if desired. If the ground is dry, and not in a hollow, 

 so that the rain flows off from the eaves on each side into 

 gutters provided to carry off the water, no floor will be needed. 

 The whole front may be made of sliding doors hung on rol- 

 lers, the doors being pushed open in tine weather, and closed 

 in storms. The upper half of each door is provided with 

 shutters that may be opened when needed or closed for full 

 protection. These shutters are hinged so that they may be 

 turned down, and bars are placed inside, as a protection for 

 the sheep in such localities as where prowling dogs are too 

 numerous or wild animals may attack the flock at night. 



For range flocks shelters may be made very cheaply. 

 The author, when keeping a flock in Western Kansas, built 

 a range of sheds in this manner. The outer Avail was of 

 sods laid up in the manner of a sod house, then a common 

 method of construction on the op<en range and distant from 

 the railroad, and especially w r heu the capital in hand could 

 be much more proiKably employed in buying and feeding 

 sheep, than in costly buildings. The main building was a 

 shed five hundred feet long, the outer wall made of sods 

 cut with a sharp steel plow, and chopped with a broad-ax 

 into lengths of six feet. The sods were eighteen inches 

 wide a,ud four inches thick. They were laid up into a wall 

 six feet high. The front of the shed was of posts eight feet 

 above the ground level, of cottonwood cut on the banks of 

 the river which ran through the range. The plates in front 

 and the rafters were of the same kind of timber, and the 

 roof was of thatch made of the abundant grass and sedge 

 in the wet bottom lands, which supplied very good hay when 

 cut in good time. 



Six similar sheds were made from this main one, half 

 the length. These were double, having a row of posts in the 

 center and one at each side. The roofs were all of thatch 

 as the main shed roof was. The outside sheds had the outer 

 walls of sods, and the shepherd's house was wholly of sods, 

 with a thatched roof. This thatch is made of bunches of 

 grass laid first on the eaves, and tied dowm to split laths 

 tied to the rafters, w r ith tarred twine sufficiently strong for 



