FATTENING SHEEP AND LAMBS IN WINTER 209 



digestive organs to accommodate themselves to the 

 change in the diet when unused to grain. Such accommoda- 

 tion properly attained will enable sheep to digest with 

 safety and profit after a time several times as much grain 

 as it would be safe to give to them at the first. Nor can 

 the system appropriate to itself the nutrients furnished in 

 heavy grain feeding with as much advantage when feed- 

 ing begins as at a later period. The lower the condition 

 of the animals, when feeding begins, the less power have 

 they to utilize such foods to the best advantage. When 

 the animals, whether lambs or sheep, are capable of tak- 

 ing maximum amounts of grain, they are said to be on 

 "full feed." 



Ordinarily the grain fed until the sheep are on full 

 feed should be nitrogenous in character, but decreasingly 

 so as full feeding is approached. Much depends, how- 

 ever, on the nature of the fodder fed. When the rough- 

 age fed consists largely of clover or alfalfa hay, corn and 

 bran without other admixture may be fed when other 

 grain food is more costly. The proportion of bran at the 

 first should be large, but not so large as to hinder the 

 sheep from eating it with a relish, and it should decrease 

 as the feeding advances. But for such preliminary feed- 

 ing it will always be found helpful to add oats to the 

 grain fed, at least for a time. When the roughage con- 

 sists of ordinary hay, there is no better or safer food for 

 preliminary feeding than oats and bran fed in equal pro- 

 portions by bulk. Other kinds of grain will answer, but 

 none is quite so safe or so satisfactory in every way as 

 oats ; hence when the price of oats is such as to preclude 

 their use when the sheep are on full feed, it may, never- 

 theless, be found profitable to feed them to some extent 

 when the fattening process begins. When bran is not 

 obtainable, if five to lo per cent of oilcake be added to 

 the grain, it will be found helpful. Where any consider- 

 able quantity of field roots is fed, it may not be neces- 

 sary to feed either bran or oilcake. When screenings are 



