The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1897-12-17
Practical Sheen Husbaudry.

Practical Sheep Husbandry.
1t is not advisa BILE to begin winter feed
ing on full rations too suddenly. Begin
gradually, feeding moderately as the d.
gestive organs become accustomed to the
cha nge.
Wheat screenings make an excellent
and cheap food for the flock. but it il adj
visable to examine this food closely to
detect any smut that may exist III it.
Smut is productive of abortion, and the
wastes of the wheat grain of any kind
| are to be used with due caution.
For each 100 pounds of live weight of
sheep three pounds of dry fodder will
be full feeding. If this is of the best
well-made clover hay it will sustain the
animal in good condition, providing moth
ing else is demanded than the mere sus-
tenance Of the animal.
A total change of feed must of course
be of considerable Importance to any ami
NAL. From succulent food to dry stuff,
and often this of very poor quality, can
not help but disturb the whole system,
much more that of sheep born to trou-
bic, many times more than men are.
A bit of canvas painted Oh one side
with linseed oil costs only a few cents.
1t may save a sheep which cost a few
dollars. Here is a hundred times the
cost returned each year for each cent ex-
pended, and the profit may run on for
ten or dozen years, for these oiled jack
cts will easily last a dozen winters if
cared for during the summers.
When an animal is yielding any prod
uct, an equivalent addition is to be made
to the standard ration of three pounds
of dry food for 100 pounds live weight.
The in-lamb eve or the sheep whose fleece
is expected to be a record-breaker must
have corresponding addition to this.
and this addition should be of the most
nutritious grain. And to select the best
kind of food we should maj Ike study of
the nutritive value of foods.-American
Sheep Breeder.
Feeding Fowls in Winter.
One of the reasons why hens do not
lay in cold weather is because they then
get their food with too little exercise,
says the American Cultivator. During
the summer the fowls are obliged mostly
to care for themselves. They get great
variety of food, eating slowly and taking
much exercise while they are filling up.
In the winter they have only one or
two kinds of food, usually grain, and
this is put in a mass before them, so
they can fill themselves at once. Then
the fowls stand idly by while the food
digests. This would be just what is
wanted if the fowls were to be fattened.
In fact, the hens thus fed do fatten, and
thus become unfit to lay. If any eggs
are formed they are apt to be with thin
shells, the result of fattening and lack of
exercise. Give the hens only small grain.
oats or wheat or, better still, mixture
of both. Oats only are not heavy enough
food for fowls in cold weather. The chaff
of oats fills their crops so that they can
not get enough nutrition. Then, if this
grain is buried in a mass of cut straw.
| and the hens are obliged to scratch for a
living, as they do in summer, instead of
being moping and dull, their lively pratt
ing. will be heard all through the day,
warmly enough they will lay as regu-
| larry as they did in the summer season.
Selling Pork from the Barrel.
In putting up pork for next years USE
| 1T is always best to barrel some more than
will be needed rather than come short of
| having enough. There are very few farm
neighborhoods where good many pounds
of pork cannot be sold during the course
of the following summer and fall. 1t al
| most always sells higher than pork will
sell in the hog, so that there is a profit
1 in barrelings park, aside from the salt it
has absorbed and which is sold at pork
prices. Yet a great many farmers who
grow more pork than they require in the
year sell themselves short every fall, and
are obliged to buy pork or other meats
by the pound.
| Winter Care Of Breeding Cows.
All the time the COW is bearing her
young she is determining by her own con-
dition what it's future dairy capacity or
prepotency shall be. If she ie we'll fed
with succulent food and is giving daily a
large quantity of milk she will very prob
ably transmit this characteristic to all her
heifer calves when they grow to be COWS.
1t is thus doubtless that all our best
breeds for the dairy originated. None
came from a cold, inhospitable climate or
where succulent feed cannot be had. The
use of basement barns to winter COWS in,
and of corn ensilage to feed them with.
are essential points if the best dairy stock
is to be perpetuated in our Northern eli
mates. So the farmer, when giving the
best care and succulent feed to his COWS
| bearing young, may count not only on the
extra amount of milk which they are thus
able to give, but equally, also, on increas-
ing the ability of their progeny in milk
and butter production. For this reason
also it is best to hold the COW to her milk
as long as we can. 1t may not pay the
trouble of milking, but every pint or quart
of milk drawn from the udder checks the
tendency of the COW to fatten, and thus
impress sthat characteristic on her pro-
geny.