The Breeding and Feeding of Sheep. 
633 
best without their mothers. As soon as possible after weaning they 
should be carefully dipped. Biggs's dipping-trough and composition 
are both excellent. We should dip twice or thrice during the season ; 
the outlay (under 2d. a head) will be well repaid in improved health, 
freedom from irritation, and so forth. 
Change of food is desirable for lambs ; hence vetches and clover 
can be alternately fed ; next rape and vetches mixed ; then rape, wlijich 
may be got ready for August ; early turnips and rape in September. 
Sainfoin is also very valuable as a change. On regular breeding- 
farms, especially when the climate is against winter-feeding, lambs 
should be sold in the autmnn. They vn\l often make a comparatively 
higher price than if kept through the winter and fattened. There 
will always be plenty of buyers, because so many fai-ms are unsuitcd 
for breeding. 
It is probable also that fatting sheep in yards will be a more 
common jiractice when the profitable character of the system, as com- 
pared with feeding cattle, has been more fully demonstrated. Some 
time ago, a paper was read at the Central Farmers' Club by Mr. Ruston, 
in which that gentleman stated that 6 lambs tread as much straw into 
manure as a beast ; that one acre of mangold kept 25 sheep from 
December 1st to April 15th ; and that he made his mangolds pay 
12/. lis. 2irf. per acre, and the hay and straw 3s. a head. Hence we 
may look for an increased demand for good stock tegs, such as ought 
to be produced by the kind of feeding we have sketched out. With 
regard to the proportions of food for say 200 fatting and 100 store 
tegs, the summer keep would consist of clover, vetches, and sainfoin ;* 
and they should be always folded, and the sheep changed as frequently 
as possible. For August we must provide 8 to 10 acres of rape and 
vetches. A most excellent mixture is 1 bushel of vetches and 2 lbs. 
of rape ; a feed of clover-hay should be given in the morning, and a 
feed of rape in the afternoon, when their bellies are full, -with a little 
hay and i lb. of corn. From September 1st to October 15th, 10 to 12 
acres of rape planted at two or three times will be required. From the 
middle of October to December 1st, 10 acres of turnip cut for fatting 
sheep. From December 1st, swedes : a good crop will last the 300 
sheep one week. By Christmas increase the corn to ^ lb., and later 
on from f lb. to 1 lb. Lambs, when fii-st fed on the roots, are sometimes 
affected with scour of a peculiar character, and die off.very suddenly, 
though at first they may appear to be doing remarkably well. In these 
cases the roots are generally fleshy and growing. The sheep have 
abundance, and were probably poor when put on. The cause of death is 
apoplexy, or making blood too fast. The blood becomes thick and 
imhealthy, and the animal dies. Corn, given injudiciously, will pro- 
duce the same result. If the sheep is supplied vnih corn undiluted 
with chaff early in the morning, when the belly is empty, it will eat 
ravenously, and suffer accordingly. Chaff is so valuable a diluter of 
com that some old shepherds, though doubtless with some exaggera- 
tion, say that a pint of com with a pint of chaff is equal to one quart 
of com given alone. Chaff, with roots, if the application could be 
economically carried out, would imdoubtedly be far better food, espe- 
