244 MIXED FEEDS FOR SHEEP. 



daily taken into and digested in the stomach of a sheep of 

 that size. Therefore, to put sheep on half straw feed, it is 

 necessary that some other portion of their feed be more 

 concentrated, or more nutritious in proportion to bulk than 

 hay — as, for example, grain or roots — - or else they will not 

 get their proper supply of nutriment. 



My own course, when feeding straw, has been to give a 

 feed of hay at morning and evening, (intended to average 

 about a pound per head each time,) all the straw the sheep 

 will eat and about a pound of cut turnips each, at noon — the 

 latter being a little increased if the hay and straw are not of 

 prime quality. But I do not often give over two bushels, or 

 120 lbs. of turnips, to a hundred. Hay here does not average 

 $8 a ton ; and though I regard feeding turnips as economical, 

 my major object in growing and feeding them is to promote 

 the health and thrift of my breeding ewes, and the growth of 

 my lambs. 



Some excellent sheep farmers on grain and clover- seed 

 farms lying a few miles north of me — where a contiguous 

 city market raises the average price of hay about 50 per cent, 

 higher than here — give their store sheep no hay until March, 

 feeding them in lieu of it, bright, good straw in abundance, 

 clover chaff,* and a daily feed of Indian corn ranging from one 

 and a half to two gills per head, according to their size and to 

 other circumstances. The straw and grain chaff are generally 

 fed fresh from the thrashing floor half a dozen times a day, 

 and the sheep are not requii-ed to eat it at all close. After 

 the first of March a full supply of bright clover hay is given 

 and the grain feed taken off. The sheep, as I have had 

 repeated occasion to observe, winter well, and the breeding 

 ewes raise good lambs. 



I do not believe that breeding ewes or lambs could 

 properly be fed enough straw and turnips — particularly if 

 the straw was dry and ripe — to obtain the equivalent of a 

 full supply of hay. If turnips are fed in excess, they render 

 the evacuations too thin and active for severely cold weather. 

 But a pound a head given to straw-fed sheep with a little 

 diminution of the corn otherwise requisite, would, I think, 

 constitute a better and cheaper feed than entire corn and 

 straw. 



The comparative nutriment of the different kinds of straw 

 has been given in the table on page 235. Oat and barley 



* That is, -what is left of cloyer after thrashing or hulling— a black, unpromising 

 looking mass. 



