382 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 16, 
FEEDING SILAGE TO SHEEP. 
Would you advise feeding silage to sheep 
for Winter feeding, or what do you consider 
nearly as good as hay for sheep in Winter? 
Geneva, N. Y. J. J. s. 
For the past three or four years, on 
account of the dry season, we have been 
short of turnips for our sheep, and 
knowing that it was impossible to get 
the best returns from them without suc¬ 
culence, I have been feeding a good deal 
of silage to my sheep. Each year I have 
come to appreciate it more, and count it 
a close second to turnips. It will not 
altogether take the place of hay, but it 
will materially reduce the quantity re¬ 
quired. It is not practical to feed a 
cow entirely on silage—without more 
dry forage. A sheep cannot take pro¬ 
portionately as much—just why I do 
not know. I feed from one to two 
bushels daily to 25 ewes, usually with 
their grain. The silage supplies succu¬ 
lence, which enables them to digest 
their other feed to better advantage. My 
sheep are extravagantly fond of it. 
The questioner evidently wants some¬ 
thing to save his hay. He can feed some 
bright oat or wheat straw. If he can 
secure wet brewery grains they will 
supply both bulk and protein. If the 
ewes are giving milk or they are being 
fed for market, they will take a moder¬ 
ate amount of cotton-seed meal; or if 
they arc ewes before lambing, linseed 
meal. These will balance up and in¬ 
crease the appetite for the straw. Malt 
sprouts soaked will not be so readily 
eaten, but they will supply bulk and nu¬ 
trition. EDWARD VAN ALSTYNE. 
SHEARING AND DIPPING SHEEP. 
I usually begin shearing my sheep the 
last week in March or the first week in 
April; that is, if the weather will per¬ 
mit. I believe the sooner the ewes are 
shorn after having dropped their lambs 
the better, if the lambs are born in 
March. If the lambs will not be dropped 
until the last of April or the first of 
May, it would be well to shear the ewes 
before lambing. Probably some will say 
this is too early to shear, but my idea 
for shearing early is: If a shower of 
rain comes up in the early Spring when 
the ewes and lambs are out in the fields, 
the lambs may become rained down and 
perhaps drowned before the ewe with 
her heavy fleece will feel the rain at all. 
On the other hand, if the ewe is shorn 
she will feel the rain as soon as the 
lamb and will at once seek shelter. Then, 
too, the ewe will thrive better without 
her heavy fleece in the warm days of 
early Spring, therefore giving more 
nourishment for her offspring. 
I note that many farmers still use 
the old style hand shears, but in my ex¬ 
perience with hand shears and the shear¬ 
ing machine I far prefer the latter. The 
machine takes the wool off close to the 
skin far more smoothly than can be 
done with the best hand shears. Not 
only is it much easier for the man that 
does the shearing, but it takes the wool 
off all in one mass and much closer, 
thus saving 10 to 25 per cent per head. 
It is almost impossible to cut a sheep 
with the machine shears, and even if the 
corner of the knife should cut the skin 
it would not go deep enough to bring 
the blood. The man with only 20 head 
of sheep will find, I am very sure, that 
it is more profitable to own and shear 
his sheep with a hand-power shearing 
machine than to use the old style hand 
shears. The day of washing sheep be¬ 
fore shearing has long passed away 
among up-to-date fiockmasters. No 
man can wash the fleece on a sheep’s 
back as clean as is done by machinery. 
Not only does washing give the sheep a 
ucfo scare, but it injures its health. 
I have a room with a floor especially 
for shearing. This room opens into a 
pen large enough to hold 25 to 40 sheep. 
The animal is brought in on the floor, 
and after being shorn goes back into 
the pen. In one corner of the room 
I have a wool table on which I place 
the fleeces as they are shorn, and tie 
them up, taking care to have the fleeces 
look neat and regular, with all black 
ends inside. Sometimes when I do not 
want to move the sheep from their reg¬ 
ular pen, I take a good-sized canvas, 
spread it on one side of the pen and 
use this instead of the regular pen and 
floor. I am very particular about trim¬ 
ming off all tags, sweatlocks on the in¬ 
side of the legs, around the eyes, etc. I 
am also very careful to keep the animals 
quiet while being shorn, and allow no 
dogs or other annoyance around at any 
time. 
I do not dip my sheep immediately 
after they have been shorn, but dip 
some time in May in order to keep them 
free from ticks. For this purpose, I 
prefer one of the carbolic coal-tar prep¬ 
arations, as it is easy to mix with the 
water, simply pouring it on top of the 
water in the vat and stirring a little. 
It is also perfectly harmless to those 
who must work at the vat, if some 
should spatter on the face or body. 
There is no danger of poison if the 
sheep should swallow some of the dip 
or happen to eat where it had dripped 
off them. If the weather is very warm, 
I use the water cold; otherwise, I heat 
it lukewarm. I generally make the so¬ 
lution one part preparation to 60 parts 
water, and have always been successful 
in killing all ticks. I think the best 
vat for a small flock of sheep is one 
of the small galvanized iron tanks that 
are made especially for the purpose of 
dipping sheep, with a run-board on 
which the sheep can walk out into the 
draining pen, with some assistance. In 
my draining pens are two platforms, 
12x12 feet each, raised from the ground 
so that we can slant them enough tow¬ 
ard a trough placed between them and 
running into the vat, so that the dip 
which drips from the sheep when they 
come out of the vat will run into this 
trough and back into the vat. When one 
pen is filled we can let the sheep stand 
and drip while we are filling the other, 
and when the second pen is full, those 
in the first pen are ready to let out. The 
animals are entirely immersed in the 
dip and are kept in it about two min¬ 
utes before being let out. 
Johnson Co., 111. w. h. underwood. 
CHURNING DIFFICULTY. 
Our cow is fresh and well fed and makes 
one pound of butter per day often, and 
then owing to something unknown to us the 
cream (after hours of hard churning) fails 
to thicken up, and did once thicken up 
and was set aside to gather and went hack 
to cream again, and entirely refuses to 
form butter. What is the trouble? 
Norfolk, Va. e. v. t. 
Churning at too low a temperature is 
probably the most common cause for 
butter failing to come in cold weather. 
Skim a rich cream, that is, avoid run¬ 
ning m skim-milk with the cream. If 
a separator is used, adjust the cream 
screw to skim a thick cream. If shal¬ 
low pans are used, allow them to stand 
for 36 hours before skimming. Ripen 
your cream at a temperature of about 
70 degrees, holding it there for not 
more than 12 hours before churning. It 
should be kept as cold as possible until 
enough is collected for a churning. 
Then add a little clear buttermilk and 
warm to the ripening temperature. 
Churn to a temperature of about 64 de¬ 
grees, or even a little higher, if your 
butter fails to come when the cream is 
colder than this. Do not fill your churn 
more than half full of cream. When 
your cream thickens up do not set 
aside, but continue churning slowly until 
the butter comes hi granular form about 
the size of good plump kernels of wheat. 
In churning turn reasonably fast, but 
not so fast that the cream will go round 
with the churn, thus failing to fall from 
one side of the churn to the other. 
C. S. M. 
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