On increasing our Supplies of Animal Food. 



371 



would; for assuming that an equal bulk of air is breathed one 

 day with another, the warmer it is the rarer and less heavy it will 

 be ; so that the artificial circumstances which induce external 

 warmth hinder the animal from making so much use of the 

 means which have been provided for the natural maintenance of 

 its temperature. The warmer, therefore, in reason, that an animal 

 is kept the less of its food goes to waste as fuel. But it is not 

 merely cold that an exposed animal has to sustain. A flock of 

 sheep folded on the turnip-fields, as they often are, amidst frosts 

 and snows and rain and wind and sleet, are in as miserable a 

 plight for making mutton as can be conceived. And it is by the 

 avoidance of all the stagnation and disease consequent on this, as 

 well as by the direct saving of food which warmth effects, that 

 shed-feeding recommends itself. Mr. Childers first proved and 

 published the benefits of the plan in the case of sheep to British 

 farmers ; but it had long been known on the Continent.* The 

 Society's Journal contains several cases of the advantages attend- 

 ing this mode of treating them. And Mr. Huxtable has latterly 

 recommended a still more artificial treatment, of which we have 

 as yet had no experience. He advises, in order to save straw as 

 food, and to obtain manure in a state to drill, that sheep be kept 

 without litter on a sparred floor, through which their dung may 

 drop into a pit below. Of shed-feeding sheep we have had seve- 

 ral years' experience over, in the whole, nearly 1500 fattening 

 sheep : and the plan, so far as yet appears, we shall continue to 

 follow. Our balance of accounts, published in a past page, may 

 not appear to speak well for the plan ; but it is not out of this we 

 are persuaded that the small returns from our sheep have arisen. 

 It is the great expense of feeding them that has reduced our 

 apparent profits. We have had this winter 230 heavy sheep in 

 sheds, their litter and manure accumulating under them for 

 three months together. The shed does not cover the whole of 

 the space on which the animals stand. Every eight sheep have 

 a pen of 10 feet by 15 feet, and of this a roof covers about 10 feet 

 by 10 feet. Not a single case of lameness has attended our flock 

 this winter, and they Viave been growing fast.j They eat their 

 food (7 lbs. turnips at 6 a.m., linseed porridge at 10 a.m., Gibs, 

 turnips at 2 p.m., and 7 lbs. turnips in the evening) and lie down 

 the rest of the day. To this continual rest we attribute their 



* Having farmed, largely, many years ago, on the shores of the Baltic, I was com- 

 pelled to keep the sheep under sheds to guard them, during the winter, from the attacks 

 of wolves. At first they were housed in an enormous barn ; but, afterwards, in covered 

 sheds, in which they were found more healthy, and I could not perceive any advantage 



in the greater warmth of the barn than of the sheds in respect of their fattening. F. 



Burke. 



f The feet of about two pens of sheep are pared every day, so that the shepherd gets 

 over the lot every fortnight. 



