TURNIPS AS SHEEP FOOD.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 864, 9 July 1910, Page 8

TURNIPS AS SHEEP FOOD.

. NECESSITY OF ADDITIONAL SOLIDS In the methods of feeding sheep on turnips.-we See great'diversity of practice (says a writer in an exchange). Some, men- who claiir.- to- be, eminently practical feed their sheep 011 turnips without the addition of any dry feed, or even a run off on grass. When >it is remembered that in sol't turnips the percentage of solid matter is' a very low one, the slieep have to eat a great amount of food to obtain, .the necessary solids with 'which"to' giwv 'and fatten; barely. 10; per: q'ont.-.01-;thp;nvhole.' It should not be forgotten, too, that tho turnip crop , is brought into requisition during the cold, months;.'of the year, when more food, no matter of what composition, is. required for maintaining the natural-heat of tiie-body than at other periods. If it were not for the .particularly , digestable nature of turnips there would not" be much to recommend this erop if it wero intended to be fed off unaided Tjy i other food of drier nature. Other sheep men maintain that it is profitable to feed crushed oats, even at a cost of 3s. a bushel, in conjunction with turnips, and as oats contain nearly as much solid matter as turnips do water, the combination should certainly prove a good one. Even ordinary pasture grass contains'as much as 2\ times as much solids as turnips, but most farmers;.wbuld:;be loth to concede as much. There is no doubt that in the . past farming operations havo ' been carried '■ oh "without- any attention being paid to:higher, or more scientific methods; but jvith higher-priced land and dearer labour, the "work of tlie farmer in the future cannot' be so haphazard if required to be made profitable... -