The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-03-24
Friday Morning, March "a, 1866.
Sheep Husbandryy.. '.

Iae following extracts are from an inter
esting article by "ryro, !" in a late number o
the N. e. Farmer: s3 ms :. - :,
I'VE have met with number of farmers
who never feed with anything else but meadow
hay during the Winter; and we have heard
more complaints from these men that sheep
raising does not pay, than from any other
They complain that their fleeces are light, and
their wool does not bring so good price as
their neighbors'. They complain also that thew
lose their ewes, and have poor luck with their
lambs. Their Oldest ewes die because their
teeth are not capable of masticating sufficient
OF such food to keep them alive, and they
lose their laub; because meadow hay does
not furnish sufficient nutrlment for the lamb
during the period of CESSATION, or not sufficient
to produce milk to supply its early wants
and should such lambs survive, they bring a
poor price from the butcher, or furnish very
poor stock.
We have said in former article that the
character of the feed materially affects the
the conditions of the wool. We wish to bear
our testimony to the fact that we never saw
good or heavy fleece from meadow hav. 1t
matters not how large the supply of tnat kind
of food, the wool bears the characteristics OF
short teed-always dry, coarse, and often cot
ted at the bottom. We have known ewes
brought from such places, and aftor being well
UAAeSASo gam. ohO 0uo q udl pOuuu5 per
fleece, and worth five cents per pound more
after being properly cared for than when fed
upon meadow hay. rs.,r. f-4.
We have some acquaintance with a pur-
chaser OF wool who Was called upon by far
mer who had about twenty 1eeces of wool for
sale, some OF them were Cotswold and Leices-
ter cross. others were nearly pure merino.-
The long wool about an inch from the bottom
of the staple was cotted, the bottom being per-
In
cott, was very weak at that point, the wool
being well grown up to the place already de-
scribed. The purchaser made this remark to
the farmer: "You have an excellent pasture :;
your sheep come up in the Fall in an excellent
condition; but you put them on very poor
feed as soon as they got into winter quarters !:
you fed them upon nothing but very poor hay
till near lambing time, when you improved
upon their feed to considerable degree and
continued it till they were turned out to
grass
The man at first denied the whole, saying
that the sheep were well fed through the
whole winter. The purchaser, however, main
tanned his position, offering to send man to
make inquiries of his hired man. When he
found further denial was of no avail, he ask
edvery earnestly; "How did you know all
about 1t? You we're not there to see.o TIE
purchaser of the wool showed him how every
ueece was aHScleQ just al Inc same point OF
growth, and how seriously it had injured bis
wool, besides materially lessening the weight
of the fleece. As the feed was improved the
wool began to grow Tree again, leaving the
colt considerably up in the staple. A similar
result is sometimes caused by sickness; but
in this case every fleece being alike affected,
and at the same place, it was conclusive evil
dence that it was caused by poor feed, as tend
ing to show the Importance of giving sheep
comfortable quarters in winter. The writer
gives the result of several carefully conduct
ed experiments. We have room only for the
following paragraph. With wool at 81 90 per
pound and meat at high figure, farmers can
hardly afford to stint or expose their focks.
Lord Dulcie had one hundred sheep placed
in shed, which ate twenty pounds of Swed-
ish turnips each per head, per day; another
hundred in the open air ate twenty-five pounds
each, and at that rate for certain period.
The former animals ate thirty pounds more
than the latter. In another experiment five
sheep were fed in the open air, between the
21st of November and the 1st of December.
They consumed ninety pounds of food per
day, temperature being A degrees. At the
end OF this time they weighed two pounds
less than when first exposed. In another, five
sheep were placed under shelter and allowed
to run at temperature of 40 degrees. They
consumed at first 80 pounds, then 10 pounds,
and increased in weight % pounds.