252 
THE CULTIVATOR 
August. 
“ Oats for Sheep ”—Rearing Lambs. 
A “Young Farmer” recently inquired whether 
“ oats were injurious to ewes with lamb ?” Perhaps 
the subject is worthy of some further notice. 
It is a settled opinion with a large class of farmers, 
that ewes, to do well, should receive little or no grain 
during the winter, and they bring instances, as does 
the inquirer above named, in which grain (oats or 
corn, generally,) has been fed, which were followed by 
the loss of lambs at birth or when a few days old. But 
these instances if closely examined will disclose further 
facts something after the following order. 
The flock were in rather indifferent order when they 
came to the yard in December, and from want of pro¬ 
per attention to their feeding and shelter, became still 
lower in flesh as the winter advances. At last the 
owner wakes up to the fact, and thinks he must do 
something to bring them on, or he shall lose all his 
lambs and perhaps a part of his old sheep. So, as late, 
perhaps, as the middle of February or first of March, 
he commences to give grain, and to “ have it do some 
good,” gives “ a pint per day ” or more ; at any rate 
a larger quantity than the sheep can bear in their low 
condition. A sudden increase in flesh is the conse¬ 
quence, accompanied with derangement of the animal 
system—which results in difficult labors at lambing, 
fever and loss of milk in the ewe, and the death of the 
lamb from want of suitable nourishment. 
Another class of farmers say that oats are not inju¬ 
rious to sheep, basing the declaration on their own 
experience. We have fed them to a considerable 
amount, and never raised better lambs—never had 
fewer losses than when oats were given each day for 
some months before lambing. As to corn, an Eastern 
farmer, who has kept sheep for twenty years, and has 
been in the habit of feeding corn for some weeks pre¬ 
vious to lambing, says he never lost a lamb in conse¬ 
quence of his sheep having been in too high flesh. He 
has at the present time twenty ewes and thirty-one 
lambs—nine pairs, one triplet, and ten single—and 
has lost none from any cause. 
If sheep are kept in good condition at all times, they 
are little liable to injury from feeding grain. On the 
contrary, they are much benefitted by the practice. We 
have found barley an excellent grain for sheep, and 
think farmers will find it profitable to grow the same 
for feeding out on the farm. 
Sheep should be in good order, so as to yield a good 
flow of milk for their lambs. How can they supply two 
lambs (as is often necessary) without some extra feed? 
Roots are valuable as well as grain, and good early cut 
clover hay is a great help to thrift and comfort. The 
lambs also may be learned to eat, and if they come 
early, some provision of this sort should be made. The 
Eastern farmer above referred to, speaks on this point 
(in the N . E- Farmer ) as follows :— 
“I have practiced for a number of years messing my 
lambs, in a small enclosure adjoining the sheep-pen, with 
an opening large enough to let them through and keep out 
the sheep. They will generally begin to eat when they are 
two weeks old. For the past five or six weeks, my lambs 
(thirty-one in number) have taken from twelve to sixteen 
quarts of meal per day. I am not very particular as re¬ 
spects the kind of meal, though I rather prefer equal parts 
of corn and oil-meal. I have twin lambs at the present 
time, not far from two months old, which will weigh near¬ 
ly sixty pounds. If in addition to the meal, they have 
plenty of good hay in a crib by themselves, they will re¬ 
quire but little else. They will not be continually worry¬ 
ing the sheep, so that not only the lambs but the sheep 
will be in much better condition on turning to grass than 
they otherwise would. I have never discovered any in¬ 
jurious effects from giving my lambs so much meal, al¬ 
though I always let them eat all they will.” 
Improving Stock by Good Feeding. 
Messrs. Editors — I recently had occasion to visit 
an old gentleman who has been a farmer from his youth 
up, and who, on account of his soundness of judgment, 
is regarded in his neighborhood as quite an authority 
in matters of farm management. Among other sub¬ 
jects upon which we conversed, I found him especially 
enthusiastic, and withal sound and sensible, upon the 
improvement of stock. Some years ago a bull of the 
Short-Horn breed had been brought into his neighbor¬ 
hood, for the use of which $25, and then $20, and lat¬ 
terly $15, had been the usual charges. Like most 
other neiv things, this movement was at first regarded 
with a cautious coolness, or even a suspicion of at¬ 
tempted imposition, on the part of this conservative or 
man of slow progress. He had been engaged for many 
years in improving the native stock by rearing only the 
best calves, and doing this by the help of much more 
nutritious food than is usually given to calves intended 
for preservation ; and he would often tell his neighbors 
who had had the use of this Short-Horn, that he would 
admit that they had spent their $20 wisely when they 
should be prepared to prove to him that their cows of 
the improved breed, half Short-Horn and half native, 
did really surpass some of his in dairy products. His 
desire not to be outdone by his “ new-fangled ” neigh¬ 
bors, led him, he said, to greater care and exertion than 
he had ever before made to make his calves and young 
creatures grow in the most thrifty manner possible, and 
he seemed very confident, (referring to eases by seeing 
which I might satisfy myself as to the correctness of 
his statements,) that stock which he had raised by 
special care, entirely of the native breed, was quite 
superior to some of the stock raised by some of his 
neighbors, though with one-half of the Durham blood 
in their veins. This superiority of his young stock, en¬ 
tirely native, to that of some of his neighbors, he was 
candid enough to admit as owing mainly to his own 
extra feeding and care-taking generally, and to the 
want of proper care and feeding on the part of those 
whose half-blood stock was inferior to his own. In cases 
where stock of the latter description had been 'proper¬ 
ly fed and reared, the advantage of the Short-Horn 
cross was so evident, that our slow-moving friend was at 
length willing to admit it, and also to practice accord¬ 
ingly. He showed me a calf of this cross of nearly a 
year old, and so evident was its superiority to other 
calves of the same cross and about the same age in the 
neighborhood, as to convince me that judicious rear¬ 
ing is about of as much, importance in procuring 
first-rate animals as crossing with the very best breed 
in existence. 
The method of rearing calves which our friend has 
found so successful, consists mainly in feeding or suck¬ 
ling them three times a day, using nothing but new 
milk until they are eight weeks old—after which he 
gives skim-milk with flax-seed tea. Upon the with¬ 
drawal of the milk, besides abundance of grass, each 
calf is supplied with two pounds of oil-cake in the 
course of the day. He reckons that he is abundantly 
paid for all his extra labor in rearing calves in this 
way by their greater thriftiness, and especially by their 
immunity from disease. For twenty years he had not 
had a calf get sick or die, as they often do by common 
modes of rearing, a. r. a. 
