Page 3 Advertisements Column 1

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 318, 26 October 1865, Page 3

SCAB IN SHEEP, AND ITS CURE. [The following is extracted from a Pamphlet published by Alexander Bruce, Esq., Chief Inspector of Sheep, New South IVales.J HABITS. On the acari reaching sound sheep, their proceedure is Unis sketched by one of the ablest and closest observers of the disease, M. Walz : If one or more female acari are placed on the ■wool of the sound sheep, they quickly travel to the root of it, and bury themselves in the skin the places at which they penetrated being only distinguished by minute red spots, about the size of the point of a pin. On the tenth or twelfth day 8 little swelling may be detected with the finger, end the skin changes its color to a greenish blue tint. The pustule is now rapidly formed, and about Ihe sixteenth daybreaks, and the mother) again appear, with their little ones attached to their feet, and covered with a portion of the shell from which they have emerged. These little ones immediately set to work and penetrate the neighboring skin, burying themselves beneath it, where they find their proper nourishment, grow and propagate until the poor animal has myriads of them to prey on and torment it—every litter of parasites comprising from eight to fifteen little ones. With regard to the tenacity of life, which is the characteristic principally affecting the question of a cure of the disease, the insect has been known to live for weeks iu water, and for months in loose wool in a moist atmosphere ; and there is no doubt but that sheep have received infection from yard' and trees, in which the acari must have existed for several weeks after leaving the scabbed sheep on which they were propognted. Besides, (he eggs of the acorns (which are buried under the skin of the sheep when the first dipping lakes place, and from which the insect would only make its exit at a period of some nine to sixteen days thereafter) thus escape destruction, and would in due time come forth and propagate, renewing the disease if they were not destroyed. CURE. For its cure, as yet no dressing or specific has, either in Victoria or New South Wales, when used on stations on a large scale, been generally so effective as tobacco and sulphur*; and it was tobacco and sulphur which eradicated scab from South Australia. The proper!ions of tobacco and sulphur used were one pound of each to five gallons of water, and by dipping the sheep twice, at an interval of from ten to twenty-one days, in a careful and systematic manner, fairly established the character of sulphur as a lasting disinfectant, and confirmed the belief in tobacco as a curative. The chief causes of the numerous failures which Lave occurred in the attempt to cure slicep with tobocco and sulphur, are—l. Leaving sheep, and especially crawlers, which are unable to follow the flocks to the dip, out on the run, and thus omitting to dress them. Before tipping is commenced every sheep of this description should bo killed and burned, and a careful account should be taken some three or four times at least, immediately before the dipping of all the sheep on the run, to ascertain beyond the possibility of a doubt their actual numbers, with which the number dipped must be made to tally exactly. 2. Using inferior tobacco. Imported leaf tobacco to be sound should be tough. The colonial or home grown must be well sweated, tough, and strong in flavour, and I would recommend as the safer plan to nse fully three-fourths more of the home-grown than of the imported, to make up the difference in the curative powers, 3. Omitting to keep the mixture at a proper strength and heat. 4. Allowing sheep to pass from the dip, before the mixture had been thoroughly applied to them, or before it has had time to do its work, especially *i it becomes cool. 6. Neglecting to spot or dip in strong tobaccowater those sheep which are very badly scabbed; and 6. Neglecting to re-dip in the proper time.

• While it only takes thirty seconds to kill the •cab insect with the mixture at ninety degrees, it will lire for ten or twelve minutes in the same mixture at 45 50 deg. Fab.