SALT FOR SHEEP.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 963, 13 March 1917, Page 11

SALT FOR SHEEP.

The wisdom of giving salt to sheep in the paddock is not as generally admitted as some people suppose. One of the oldest floekmasters in Australia will have none of it. One can readily understand that, outside the grass districts where Nature has generously provided an abundant variety of saline plants and herbage, no controversies on this .subject are. likely to arise. . The artificial feeding of salt to sheep is regarded by some people as being the outcome of modern progress and of modern appreciation of scientific teaching. This is not the case. The custom is as old as our knowledge of sheep. Spain gave us our merino, and one can therefore assume that, in the past, knowledge of sheep husbandry in Spain was in advance of that procurable elsewhere. The first thing which the shepherd in Spain used to do when his flocks were brought in from their summer pastures was to give them as much salt as they could eat. Every owner allowed 25001b of salt, to each' 1000 sheep, and this amount would be consumed by them in about five months. She sheep were not allowed any when travelling, nor during the winter* as it was thought that salt was conducive to abortion if given to ewes when in lamb. Tins lias been the custom in Spain for manv generations, and it is thought In lie the true reason why the kings of Spain could not at nnv lime raise the price of salt to the same height as it attained, and was maintained at, in Prance. The fear was that it would tempt the shepherds to stint their sheep, and this, it was believed, would weaken their constitutions and deteriorate their wool. The shepherd of that earlv period was in the habit of placing 50 or flu flat stones at a-distance of about five paces apart, strewing salt on each, and by leading tiie sheep slowly among lliem. give earh animal a chance 1o eat at pleasure. It was noticed that when th<> sheen •■•|.v,> feeding on limestone lands they arc no salt, and that, if they it.of with soil of mixed formation they would partake of salt "only in proportion as the soil was mingled with (day."