TAR. This is supposed by many to form a very healthful condiment for sheep, and they smear the nose with it, which is licked and swallowed as the natural heat of the flesh, or that of the weather, causes it to trickle down over the nostrils and lips. Others, suffering the flock to get unusually salt-hungry, place tar upon flat stones, or in troughs, and then scatter salt upon it so that both may be consumed together.
Applied to the nose, in the nature of a cataplasm, it may be advantageous in catarrhs; and in the same place, at the proper periods, its odor may, perhaps, repel the fly, the eggs of which produce the "gout in the head," as it is termed. However valuable it may be as a medicine, and even as a debergent in the case specified, there is but slight ground for confidence in it merely as a condiment.
_Dry_, _sweet pastures_, and such as abound in aromatic and bitter plants, are best suited for sheep-walks. No animal, with the exception of the goat, crops so great a variety of plants. They eat many which are rejected by the horse and the ox, which are even essential to their own wants. In this respect they are valuable a.s.sistants to the husbandman, as they feed greedily on wild mustard, burdock, thistles, marsh-mallows, milk-weed, and various other offending plants; and the Merino exceeds the more recent breeds in the range of his selections.
In pastures, however, where the dry stalks of the burdock, or the hound"s-tongue, or tory-weed have remained standing over the winter, the burs are caught in the now long wool, and, if they are numerous, the wool is rendered entirely unmarketable and almost valueless. Even the dry p.r.i.c.kles of the common and Canada thistles, where they are very numerous, get into the neck-wool of sheep, as they thrust their heads under and among them to crop the first scarce feed of the northern spring; and, independently of injuring the wool, they make it difficult to wash and otherwise handle the sheep. Indeed, it is a matter of the soundest policy to keep sheep on the cleanest pastures, those free from these and similar plants; and in a region where they are pastured the year round, they should be kept from contact with them for some months prior to shearing.
Many prepare _artificial pastures_ for their flocks, which may be done with a number of plants. Winter rye, or wheat sown early in the season, may be fed off in the fall, without injury to the crop; and, in the following spring, the rye may be pastured till the stalks shoot up and begin to form a head. This affords an early and nutritious food. Corn may be sown broadcast, or thickly in drills, and either fed off in the fields or cut and carried to the sheep in their folds. White mustard is also a valuable crop for this purpose.
To give sheep sufficient variety, it is better _to divide their range_ into several smaller ones, and change them as often, at least, as once a week. They seek a favorite resting-place, on a dry, elevated part of the field, which soon becomes soiled. By removing them from this for a few days, rain will cleanse or the sun dry it, so as to make it again suitable for them. More sheep may be kept, and in better condition, where this practice is adopted, than where they are confined to the same pasture.
SHADE. No one who has observed with what eagerness sheep seek shade in hot weather, and how they pant and apparently suffer when a hot sun is pouring down upon their nearly naked bodies, will doubt that, both as a matter of humanity and utility, they should be provided, during the hot summer-months, with a better shelter than that afforded by a common rail-fence. Forest trees are the most natural and the best shades, and it is as contrary to utility as it is to good taste to strip them entirely from the sheep-walks. A strip of stone-wall or close board fence on the south and west sides of the pasture, forms a tolerable subst.i.tute for trees. But in the absence of all these and of buildings of any kind, a shade can be cheaply constructed of poles and brush, in the same manner as the sheds of the same materials for winter shelter, which will be hereafter described.
FENCES. Poor _fences_ will teach ewes and wethers, as well as rams, to jump; and for a jumping flock there is no remedy but immoderately high fences, or extirpation. One jumper will soon teach the trick to a whole flock; and if one by chance is brought in, it should be immediately hoppled or killed. The last is by far the surest and safest remedy.
HOPPLING is done by sewing the ends of a leather strap, broad at the extremities, so that it will not cut into the flesh, to a fore and hind leg, just above the pastern joints, leaving the legs at about the natural distance apart. _Clogging_ is fastening a billet of wood to the fore leg by a leather strap. _Yoking_ is fastening two rams two or three feet apart, by bows around their necks, inserted in a light piece of timber, some two or three inches in size. _Poking_ is done by inserting a bow in a short bit of light timber, into which bit--worn on the under side of the neck--a rod is inserted, which projects a couple of feet in front of the sheep.
These and similar devices, to prevent rams from scaling fences, may be employed as a last resort by those improvident farmers who prefer, by such troublesome, injurious, and, at best, insecure means, to guard against that viciousness which they might so much more easily have prevented from being acquired.
DANGEROUS RAMS. From being teased and annoyed by boys, or petted and played with when young, and sometimes without any other stimulant than a naturally vicious temper, rams occasionally become very troublesome by their propensity to attack men or cattle. Some will allow no man to enter the field where they are without making an immediate onset upon him; while others will knock down the ox or horse which presumes to dispute a lock of hay with them. A ram which is known to have acquired this propensity should at once be _hooded_, and, if not valuable, at the proper season converted into a wether. But the courage thus manifested is usually the concomitant of great strength and vigor of const.i.tution, and of a powerfully developed frame. If good in other particulars, it is a pity to lose the services of so valuable an animal. In such cases, they may be hooded, by covering their faces with leather in such a manner that they can only see a little backward and forward. They must then, however, be kept apart from the flock of rams, or they will soon be killed or injured by blows, which they cannot see to escape.
It sometimes happens that a usually quiet-tempered ram will suddenly exhibit some pugnacity when one is salting or feeding the flock. If such a person turns to run, he is immediately knocked down, and the ram learns, from that single lesson, the secret of his mastery, and the propensity to exercise it. As the ram gives his blow from the summit of the parietal and the posterior portion of the frontal bones on _the top_ of his head, and not from the forehead, he is obliged to crouch his head so low when he makes his onset that he does not see forward well enough to swerve suddenly from his right line, and a few quick motions to the right and left enable one to escape him. Run in upon him, as he dashes by, with pitch-fork, club, or boot-heel, and punish him severely by blows about the head, if the club is used, giving him no time to rally until he is thoroughly cowed. This may be deemed harsh treatment, and likely to increase the viciousness of the animal. Repeated instances have, however, proved the contrary; and if the animal once is forced to acknowledge that he is overcome, he never forgets the lesson.
PRAIRIE FEEDING. Sheep, when destined for the prairies, ought to commence their journey as early after the shearing as possible, since they are then disenc.u.mbered of their fleece, and do not catch and retain as much dust as when driven later; feed is also generally better, and the roads are dry and hard. Young and healthy sheep should be selected, with early lambs; or, if the latter are too young, and the distance great, they should be left, and the ewes dried off. A large wagon ought to accompany the flock, to carry such as occasionally give out; or they may be disposed of whenever they become enfeebled. With good care, a hardy flock may be driven at the rate of twelve or fourteen miles a day.
Constant watchfulness is requisite, in order to keep them healthy and in good plight. One-half the expense of driving may be saved by the use of well-trained shepherd-dogs.
When arrived at their destination, they must be thoroughly washed, to free them from all dirt, and closely examined as to any diseases which they may have contracted, that these may be promptly removed. A variety of suitable food and good shelter must be provided for the autumn, winter, and spring ensuing, and every necessary attention given to them.
This would be necessary if they were indigenous to the country; but it is much more so when they have just undergone a campaign to which neither they nor their race have been accustomed.
Sheep cannot be kept on the prairies without much care, artificial food, and proper attention; and losses have often occurred, by reason of a false system of economy attempted by many, from disease and mortality in the flocks, amply sufficient to have made a generous provision for the comfort and security of twice the number lost. More especially do they require proper food and attention after the first severe frosts set in, which wither and kill the natural gra.s.ses. By nibbling at the bog--the frostbitten, dead gra.s.s--they are inevitably subject to constipation, which a bountiful supply of roots, sulphur, etc., is alone sufficient to remove.
Roots, grain, good hay, straw, corn-stalks, and pea or bean-vines are essential to the preservation of their health and thrift during the winter, everywhere north of thirty-nine degrees. In summer, the natural herbage is sufficient to sustain them in fine condition, till they shall have acquired a denser population of animals, when it will be found necessary to stock their meadows with the best varieties of artificial gra.s.ses.
The prairies seem adapted to the usual varieties of sheep introduced into the United States; and of such are the flocks made up, according to the taste or judgment of the owners. Shepherd dogs are invaluable to the owners of flocks, in these unfenced, illimitable ranges, both as a defence against the small prairie wolves, which prowl around the sheep, but have been rapidly thinned off by the settlers, and also as a.s.sistants to the shepherds in driving and herding their flocks on the open ground.
FALL FEEDING. In the North, the gra.s.s often gets very short by the tenth or fifteenth of November, and it has lost most of its nutritiousness from repeated freezing and thawing. At this time, although no snow may have fallen, it is best to give the sheep a light, daily foddering of bright hay, and a few oats in the bundle. Given thus for the ten or twelve days which precede the covering of the ground by snow, fodder pays for itself as well as at any other time during the year. It is well to feed oats in the bundle, or threshed oats, about a gill to the head, in the feeding-troughs, carried to the field for that purpose.
WINTER FEEDING. The time for taking sheep from the pastures must depend on the state of the weather and food. Severe frosts destroy much of the nutriment in the gra.s.ses, and they soon after cease to afford adequate nourishment. Long exposure to cold storms, with such food to sustain them, will rapidly reduce the condition of these animals. The only safe rule is to transfer them to their winter-quarters the first day they cease to thrive abroad.
There is no better food for sheep than well-ripened, sound Timothy hay; though the clovers and nearly all the cultivated gra.s.ses may be advantageously fed. Hundreds and thousands of northern flocks receive, during the entire winter, nothing but ordinary hay, consisting mainly of Timothy, some red and white clover, and frequently a sprinkling of gum, or spear gra.s.s. Bean and pea straw are valuable, especially the former, which, if properly cured, they prefer to the best hay; and it is well adapted to the production of wool. Where hay is the princ.i.p.al feed, it may be well, where it is convenient, to give corn-stalks every fifth or sixth feed, or even once a day; or the daily feed, not of hay, might alternate between stalks, pea-straw, straws of the cereal grains, etc.
It is mainly a question of convenience with the farmer, provided a proper supply of palatable nutriment within a proper compa.s.s is given.
It would not, however, be entirely safe to confine any kind of sheep to the straw of the cereal grains, unless it were some of those little hardy varieties of animals which would be of no use in this country.
The expediency of feeding _grain_ to store-sheep in winter depends much on circ.u.mstances. If in a climate where they can obtain a proper supply of gra.s.s or other green esculents, it would, of course, be unnecessary; nor is it a matter of necessity where the ground is frozen or covered with snow for weeks or months, provided the sheep be plentifully supplied with good dry fodder. Near markets where the coa.r.s.er grains find a quick sale at fair prices, it is not usual, in the North, to feed grain. Remote from markets it is generally fed by the holders of large flocks. Oats are commonly preferred, and they are fed at the rate of a gill a head per day. Some feed half the same amount of yellow corn.
Fewer sheep, particularly lambs and yearlings, get thin and perish where they receive a daily feed of grain; they consume less hay, and their fleeces are increased in weight. On the whole, therefore, it is considered good economy. Where no grain is fed, three daily feeds of hay are given. The smaller sizes of the Saxon may be well sustained on two pounds of hay; but larger sheep will consume from three and a half to four or even five pounds per day. Sheep, in common with all other animals, when exposed to cold, will consume much more than if well protected, or during a warmer season.
It is a common and very good practice to feed greenish cut oats in the bundle, at noon, and give but two feeds of hay, one at morning and one at night. Some feed greenish cut peas in the same way. In warm, thawing weather, when sheep get to the ground and refuse dry hay, a little grain a.s.sists materially in keeping up their strength and condition. When the feed is shortest in winter, in the South, there are many localities where sheep can get enough gra.s.s to take off their appet.i.te for dry hay, but not quite enough to keep them in prime order. A moderate daily feed of oats or pease, placed in the depository racks, would keep them strong and in good plight for the lambing season, and increase their weight of wool.
Few Northern farmers feed _Indian corn_ to store-sheep, as it is considered too hot and stimulating, and sheep are thought to become more liable to become "cloyed" on it than on oats, pease, etc. Yellow corn is not generally judged a very safe feed for lambs and yearlings.
Store-sheep should be kept in good, fair, plump condition. Lambs and yearlings may be as fat as they will become on proper feeding. It is stated that sheep will eat _cotton-seed_, and thrive on it.
It must be remembered that sheep are not to be allowed to get thin during the winter, with the idea that their condition can at any time be readily raised by better feed, as with the horse or ox. It is always difficult, and, unless properly managed, expensive and hazardous, to attempt to raise the condition of a poor flock in the winter, especially if they have reached that point where they manifest weakness. If the feeding of a liberal allowance of grain be suddenly commenced, fatal diarrh[oe]a will often supervene. All extra feeding, therefore, must be begun very gradually; and it does not appear, in any case, to produce proportionable results.
_Roots_, such as ruta-bagas, Irish potatoes, and the like, make a good subst.i.tute for grain, or as extra feed for grown sheep. The ruta-baga is preferable to the potato in its equivalents of nutriment. No root, however, is as good for lambs and yearlings as an equivalent of grain.
Sheep may be taught to eat nearly all the cultivated roots. This is done by withholding salt from them, and then feeding the chopped roots a few times, rubbed with just sufficient salt to induce them to eat the root to obtain it; but not enough to satisfy their appet.i.te for salt before they have acquired a taste for the roots.
It is customary with some farmers to cut down, from time to time in the winter, and draw into the sheep-yards, young trees of the _hemlock_, whose foliage is greedily eaten by the sheep, after being confined for some time to dry feed. This browse is commonly used, like tar, for some supposed medicinal virtues. It is p.r.o.nounced "healthy" for sheep. Much the same remarks might be made about this as have been already made concerning tar. No tonics and stimulants are needed for a healthy animal. If the foliage of the hemlock were constantly accessible to them, there would be no possible objection to their eating it, since their instincts, in that case, would teach them whether, and in what quant.i.ties, to devour it; but when entirely confined to dry feed for a protracted period, sheep will consume injurious and even poisonous succulents, and of the most wholesome ones, hurtful quant.i.ties. As a mere _laxative_, an occasional feed of hemlock may be beneficial; though, in this point of view, a day"s run at gra.s.s, in a thaw, or a feed of roots, would produce the same result. In a climate where gra.s.s is procurable most of the time, browse for medicinal purposes is entirely unnecessary.
Sheep undoubtedly require _salt_ in winter. Some salt their hay when it is stored in the barn or stack. This is objectionable, since the appet.i.te of the sheep is much the safest guide in the premises. It may be left accessible to them in the salt-box, as in summer; or an occasional feed of grined hay or straw may be given them in warm, thawing weather, when their appet.i.te is poor. This last is an excellent plan, and serves a double purpose. With a wisp of straw, sprinkle a thin layer of straw with brine, then another layer of straw, and another sprinkling, and so on. Let this lie until the next day, for the brine to be absorbed by the straw, and then feed it to all the grazing animals on the farm which need salting.
_Water_ is indispensable, unless sheep have access to succulent food, or clean snow. Constant access to a brook or spring is best; but, in default of this, they should be watered at least _once a day_ in some other way.
FEEDING WITH OTHER STOCK. Sheep should not run, or be fed, _in yards_, with any other stock. Cattle hook them, often mortally; and colts tease and frequently injure them. It is often said that "colts will pick up what sheep leave." But well-managed sheep rarely leave any thing; and, if they chance so to do, it is better to rake it up and throw it into the colts" yard, than to feed them together. If sheep are not required to eat their food pretty clean, they will soon learn to waste large quant.i.ties. If, however, they are over-fed with either hay or grain, it is not proper to compel them, by starvation, to come back and eat it.
This they will not do, unless sorely pinched. Clean out the troughs, or rake up the hay, and the next time feed less.
DIVISION OF FLOCKS. If flocks are shut up in small inclosures during winter, according to the northern custom, it is necessary to divide them into flocks of about one hundred each, consisting of sheep of about the same size and strength; otherwise, the stronger rob the weaker, and the latter rapidly decline. This is not so important where the sheep roam at large; but, even in that case, some division and cla.s.sification are best. It is best, indeed, even in summer. The poorer and feebler can by this means receive better pasture, or a little more grain and better shelter in winter.
By those who grow wool to any extent, breeding ewes, lambs, and wethers, are invariably kept in separate flocks in winter; and it is best to keep yearling sheep by themselves with a few of the smallest two-year-olds, and any old crones which are kept for their excellence as breeders, but which cannot maintain themselves in the flock of breeding ewes.
Old and feeble or wounded sheep, late-born lambs, etc., should be placed by themselves, even if the number be small, as they require better feed, warmer shelter, and more attention. Unless the sheep are of a peculiarly valuable variety, however, it is better to sell them off in the fall at any price, or to give them to some poor neighbor who has time to nurse them, and who may thus commence a flock.
REGULARITY IN FEEDING. If any one principle in sheep husbandry deserves careful attention more than others, it is, that _the utmost regularity must be preserved in feeding_.
First, there should be regularity as to _the times_ of feeding. However abundantly provided for, when a flock are foddered sometimes at one hour and sometimes at another--sometimes three times a day, and sometimes twice--some days grain, and some days none--they cannot be made to thrive. They will do far better on inferior keep, if fed with strict regularity. In a climate where they require hay three times a day, the best times for feeding are about sunrise in the morning, at noon, and an hour before dark at night. Unlike cattle and horses, sheep do not feed well in the dark; and, therefore, they should have time to consume their food before night sets in. Noon is the common time for feeding grain or roots, and is the best time, if but two fodderings of hay are given. If the sheep receive hay three times, it is not a matter of much consequence with which feeding grain is given, only that the practice be uniform.
Secondly, it is highly essential that there should be regularity in _the amount_ fed. The consumption of hay will, it is true, depend much upon the weather; the keener the cold, the more the sheep will eat. In the South, much depends upon the amount of gra.s.s obtained. In many places, a light, daily foddering supplies; in others, a light foddering placed in the depository racks once in two days, answers the purpose. In the steady cold weather of the North, the shepherd readily learns to determine about how much hay will be consumed before the next foddering time. And this amount should, as near as may be, be regularly fed. In feeding grain or roots, there is no difficulty in preserving entire regularity; and it is vastly more important than in feeding hay. Of the latter, a sheep will not over-eat and surfeit itself; of the former, it will. Even if it be not fed grain to the point of surfeiting, it will expect a like amount, however over-plenteous, at the next feeding; failing to receive which, it will pine for it, and manifest uneasiness.
The effect of such irregularity on the stomach and system of any animal is bad; and the sheep suffers more from it than any other animal. It is much better that the flock receive no grain at all, than that they receive it without regard to regularity in the amount. The shepherd should _measure_ out the grain to the sheep in all instances, instead of _guessing_ it out, and measure it to each separate flock.
EFFECT OF FOOD. Well-fed sheep, as has been previously remarked, produce more wool than poorly fed ones. No doctrine is more clearly recognized in agricultural chemistry than that animal tissues derive their chemical components from the same components existing in their food. Various a.n.a.lyses show that the chemical composition of wool, hair, hoofs, nails, horns, feathers, lean meat, blood, cellular tissue, nerves, etc., are nearly identical.
The organic part of wool, according to standard authorities, consists of carbon, 50.65; hydrogen, 7.03; nitrogen, 17.71; oxygen and sulphur, 24.61. The inorganic const.i.tuents are small. When burned, it leaves but a trifling per cent. of ash.
The large quant.i.ty of nitrogen contained in wool shows that its production is increased by highly azotized food; and from various experiments made, a striking correspondence has been found to exist between the amount of wool and the amount of nitrogen in food. _Pease_ rank first in increasing the wool, and very high in the average comparative increase which they produce in all the tissues.
The increase of fat and muscle, as of wool, depends upon the nature of the food. It is not very common, in the North, for wool-growers to fatten their wethers for market by extra winter feeding. Some give them a little more generous keep the winter before they are to be turned off, and then salt them when they have obtained their maximum fatness the succeeding fall.
Stall-feeding is lost on an ill-shaped, unthrifty animal. The perfection of form and health, and the uniform good condition which characterizes the thrifty one, indicate, too plainly to be misunderstood, those which will best repay the care of their owner. The selection of any indifferent animal for stall-fattening will inevitably be attended with loss. Such ought to be got rid of, when first brought from the pasture, for the wool they will bring.
When winter fattening is attempted, sheep require warm, dry shelters, and should receive, in addition to all the hay they will eat, meal twice a day in troughs--or meal once and chopped roots once. The equivalent of from half a pint to a pint of yellow corn meal per head each day is about as much as ordinary stocks of Merino wethers will profitably consume; though in selected flocks, consisting of large animals, this amount is frequently exceeded.
YARDS.
Experience has amply demonstrated that--in the climate of the Northern and Eastern States, where no gra.s.s grows from four to four and a half months in the winter, and where, therefore, all that can be obtained from the ground is the repeatedly frozen, unnutritious herbage left in the fall--it is better to keep sheep confined in yards, excepting where the ground is covered with snow. If suffered to roam over the fields at other times, they get enough gra.s.s to take away their appet.i.te for dry hay, but not enough to sustain them; they fall away, and toward spring they become weak, and a large proportion of them frequently perish.
Flocks of some size are here, of course, alluded to, and on properly stocked farms. A few sheep would do better with a boundless range.
Some let out their sheep occasionally for a single day, during a thaw; others keep them entirely from the ground until let out to gra.s.s in the spring. The former course is preferable where the sheep ordinarily get nothing but dry fodder. It affords a healthy laxative, and a single day"s grazing will not take off their appet.i.te from more than one succeeding dry feed. It is necessary, in the North, to keep sheep in the yards until the feed has got a good start in the spring, or they will get off from their feed--particularly the breeding ewes--and get weak at the most critical time for them in the year.
Yards should be firm-bottomed, dry, and, in the northern climate, kept well littered with straw. The yarding system is not practised to any great extent in the South; nor should it be, where sheep can get their living from the fields.