SHEEP FEEDING.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19461, 7 November 1928, Page 3

SHEEP FEEDING.

EXPERIMENTS AT LINCOLN

COLLEGE.

The half-yearly report issued by Lincoln College contains full details of the various experiments being conducted there in regard to stock feeding and the manuring of crops. The section devoted to the experimental feeding of sheep is as-follows: Probably the most important-part of the pasture work, states the report, is that contained under the heading of experimental feeding of sheep. No amount of grass production is going to help unless the present stock are better fed in winter and provision made for winter feeding of the increased numbers resulting front intensive use of summer grass. One mob of ewes was fed on a rich feed including hay, oat sheaf chaff and 3oz of meat meal per day at a total cost of 10s per sheep for about 100 days' feeding. A second mob was fed on a diet low in protein (oat sheaf chaff and hay) for about 90 days at a cost of 6s per head. In a previous report it is recorded that intensive grazing permits th ecarrying of 13 sheep to the acre of land, normally carrying three. If such increased numbers can be carried in the growing seasons it now becomes of the utmost importance to know the cost of artificial winter feeding of the increased numbers. On the figures given, the question of keeping flush grass eaten bare in spring and summer with more sheep, and hand feeding these extra numbers in winter must make a strong appeal to all those agricultural farmers at present keeping 200 sheep to 500 sheep at t* • rate of two sheep to the acre. Approximately half the flock owners come into this category and probably they own fully a quarter of the total jwes of the country. Finally, grazing trial are in progress to test the efficiency of intensive graz}pg, and intensive grazing plus a small ration of grain in the production of lambs fat off their mothers. To this

end three mobs of 40 ewes and lambs are being fed: , 1. In a four-acre paddock under ordinary extensive grazing conditions. 2. On four paddocks each of one acre

grazed in rotation. 3. Similar to 2. with the addition ot

gram. It has been pointed out in a previous report that where grain has been used in this way with early lambs that the ewes and lambs can be sent away fat before the middle of December at a cost for grain of not more than 3s per ewe. Since a large number of ewes (from a quarter to one-fifth of the total) are cast eaeh year for age, getting them away fat in December must be a great Saving on autumn and winter feed. The economies of the- practice are hot hard to follow. An expenditure of 3s per ewe puts the all-counted price in December up to 27s per head as against the usual 22s per head.. It is a line that is worth following up, and while it is true that the most progressive farmers are already doing these things, much information is still necessary to establish these practices as general.

The most certain remedy for worms is WADE'S WORM FIGS. No bad ofter-effecta. All chemists and stores