Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1876 — Sheep and Cows Pastured Together. [ARTICLE]

Sheep and Cows Pastured Together.

Since the decline in the price of cheese, some of our dairy farmers are advocating the introduction of sheep upon their farms in connection with the aairy, and it is suggested that sheep find cows may be kept together upon the same pasture with advantage. The reasons given are that grasses left or refused by cows will be eaten by the sheep, and thus there will be less waste on account of tufts and patches of grass left by the cows to mature and to become hard and woody. And again, the droppings of the sheep over the surface of fields render the soil more fertile and increase the productiveness of pasturage. Sheep also, it is said, serve a good purpose in keeping horned cattle ealthy. Some of the reasons given may be all true enough, and yet sheep in any considerable number, it is believed, ought not to be pastured with milch cows. Sheep, as is well known, pick out the finest and best grasses, leaving those that are coarse and less nutritious for the other stock. Milch cows pastured with sheep, when the latter are in considerable number, it has been observed, yield less milk and milk of poorer quality than when the two classes of animals are pastured separately. The reason is obvious. If the best and more nutritious grasses be selected and eaten down close, leaving the poorer grasses for the oows, it is evident they cannot make such good returns as they would upon a more favorable diet. The best pastures for milk are those which will make the most beef. Old pastures, as is well known, are much better for fattening than recently-re-seeded grounds. The old turf is filled with a greater rarity—with finer and more nutritious herbage, from which meat can be made—than the coarse and flashy feed of new pastures, and it is upon such pastures that the most and best quality of milk is produced. Now, any class of animals like sheep, that “ bite close” and select out the more nutritious of the grasses, must to a certain extent leave the balance of the food comparatively poor in quality. Sheep, it is true, will often eat plants that are left by cews, and if they Would always or wholly feed upon the food left by the cows, doubtless mere would be an important gain in pasturing the two varieties of animals together. But in practice we find the sheep preferring the best herbage, and as they bite closer than cows, fhey can always keep the advantage when pastured together. -The Idea of keeping sheep on dairy farms is not a bad one at this time by any means, but we should prefer that they be pastured by themselves or with young cattle, and not with the herd of milch cows.

The character of pasturage for the production of milk of superior quality is imperfectly understood by many dairymen, and there can scarcely be a doubt but that the delivery of milk at factories from different farms in many instances operates un equally, since the poor milk is credited alike with the richer.—JfctraZ New Yorker.