THE AORICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



207 



Feeding Sheep. 



ME. FLOWEE, Onetree Hill, South 

 Aiistraliii, read the following- paper 

 before his local Agricultural Society : — 



I think it would pay to feed sheep on 

 hay chaff in times when hay is plentiful 

 rather than let them go low in condition 

 through scarcity of feed. After harvest 

 sheep generally go hack, as dry grass will 

 not keep them up. Good wheat stubble 

 has been proved to be a valuable fodder, 

 but it does not last long. If the farmer 

 can contrive to keep his sheep in good 

 condition through this annual crisis he 

 will be in a position to take advantage of 

 the earliest favourable market instead 

 of being compelled to part with them at 

 a serious disadvantage. I have kept 

 sheep for a long time, and I find that 

 the trouble is to keep them fat at this 

 time of the year. When I first experi- 

 mented with supplementing their feed 

 with hay I liad 300 sheep, and turned 

 them into a paddock where there was a 

 haystack. When the paddock was fresh 

 they did not take to the stack, but in a 

 few days they did so, and thrived well. 

 I soon found, however, that the waste 

 through much being trodden under foot 

 was so excessive that I decided to sub- 

 stitute chaff for hay. I had a trough 

 placed near to where the flock watered, 

 filling it at night with chaff, and in the 

 morning it was cleaned out as if it had 

 been swept. After this I bought boards 

 and made half a dozen troughs so that I 

 could feed out about ISOfts. at a time, 

 keeping the sheep away from the hay- 

 stack. This was in January. At pre- 

 sent I am feeding 700 sheep, which I am 

 keeping fit for market. At the end of 

 November last T bought 300 sheep in very 

 low condition. All the land they had in 

 run u]-»on was two paddocks of hay stubble 

 of 100 acres each, and 90 per cent, of 

 them are fat. Feeding should not be in- 

 termittent. My sheep are as regularly at- 

 tended to in this respect as are my horses, 

 the allowance per head being IH). of hay 

 and chaff daily. I should use chaff only, 

 to prevent waste, had I feeders enough. 

 Besides what is trodden under foot, the 



coarse ends of the hay are uneaten, and 

 on this account the hay should be as 

 green and fine as can be procured. I 

 distribute the hay round the chaff 

 troughs, and the sheep feed on either in- 

 discriminately. Given as much as they 

 will eat, sheep will fatten as quickly upon 

 chaff as upon green grass. The difference 

 in condition becomes perceptible after 

 two or three days' extra feeding. When 

 I had only fairly good feed I gave my 

 sheep |lb. each day per head., increasing 

 the allowance to lib. as the feed in the 

 paddock became scarcer. With hay at 

 £1 per ton in stack — the present price — • 

 it would pay to feed sheep with, say, lib. 

 a head daily. By this reckoning the cost 

 per head for four months' keep would be 

 Is. 3d. When in January last I com- 

 menced feeding with chaff I constructed 

 my troughs T-shaped with two boards, 

 but I found, subsequently, that putting 

 them together on the square ^\'ith three 

 boards was more economical, more ef- 

 fectually preventing waste, and giving 

 one-third more capacity for the same 

 quantity of timber. Boards, 12in. wide 

 and lin. thick, of white pine, will make 

 serviceable troughs. One hundred feet 

 of timber will suffice for four troughs 8ft. 

 long, the ends of which can be sunnlied 

 from such scraps — old binders, drill 

 cases, &c. — as can always be found about 

 a homestead. Boards can be bought in 

 Adelaide at a cost of 18s. Gd. per 100ft., 

 so that three board troughs will cost at 

 the rate of under 7d. per lineal foot. Five 

 8ft.-troughs will be required for each 100 

 sheep. In the absence or insufficiency 

 of early rain it would, I think, pay a far- 

 mer who has, say, 300 ewes lambing in 

 April to feed them on chaffed hay to keep 

 the lambs going now that the latter bring 

 such a good price. At first there may be 

 some difficulty in familiarising your sheep 

 with this new method of feeding ; but if 

 you round them up, and the troughs are 

 placed close to the water or camping 

 ground, the difficulty will soon l)e over- 

 come, and they will follow you to the 

 feeding-]i]aco whenever you take their 

 feed out. 



