ANIMAL AILMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5302, 23 March 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

ANIMAL AILMENTS.

‘ The subjoined condensed extracts are talien ! from the best authorities on veterinary matters and will doubtless prove of interest to farmers and stock-raisers generally : ' VBBIIIN. | To destroy vermin, take quassia bark, half a pound ; water, one gallon. Boil slowly until ’ it has decreased a quart; cool ; strain ; apply s to the horse’s akin with a brush ; repeat twice. | INDIGESTION IN CALVES. Large drinks of skim-milk to calves are injurious in distending the stomach and promoting indigestion. The reumen or paunch in so young an animal is not fitted for any active functions, and the milk retained there, being exposed to the warmth and motion of the organ, undergoes certain chemical changes which end in the formation of its coagulabls principle into cheesy masses, which are as irritants to the parts containing them ; hence inflammation and other fatal consequences. The obvious remedy is prevention. Give the young calf milk frequently, not less than three tfmes a day, and in small quantities at a time. PALSEY IN PIGS. Apply over the loins a liniment composed of one part of powdered cantharides, two parts of olive oil, and two parts of oil of turpentine. If the bowels are costive, give frequent salt water injections. The following internal treatment may be repeated twice or thrice daily : —Take twelve grains of camphor, two grains of powdered nux vomica, a drachm each of powdered anise-seed and ginger; mix it with a spoonful of treacle, and smear the dose well brck on the tongue. Feed on sloppy and boiled food, and give plenty of sour milk and fruit. Treatment of such cases requires considerable patience ; and recovery is slow and often uncertain, especially if the ailment is due to a scrofulous constitution. MANGE. The parts affected should be dressed with the following Take of whale oil, one pint ; oU of tar, half a pint; lac sulphur, four ounces. Mix. One thorough dressing is generally sufficient. After forty-eight hours, wash off with Colgate’s Castile soap, which should be cut into the water so as to make a thick lather. Dissolve a little bicarbonate of soda in the suds. Change the animal’s food. Give vegetables, carrots, &c., in addition to oats, and give once a day, for two weeks, one of the following powders : Saoherated carbonate of iron, one drachm ; sulphate of quinine, one scruple; ginger, one ounce ; sulphur, one ounce. Mix, and give in a warm mash. Have the bedding changed frequently, and see that the stable is well ventilated and the food good, air fresh, and surroundings generally of a healthy character. BLACK LEO IN SHEEP. In sheep this disease is also known by the name of black spald. The causes are the same as those assigned for the same disease in cattle. It is a disease peculiar to young plethoric animals, in which the blood becomes altered in its, elements—red particles and florin being abnormally abundant. The blood being too highly charged with the elements of nutrition, suggests the propriety, by way of prevention, of keeping the animals on spare diet. As the duration of this disease is so very short, treatment is practically speaking, useless. As soon as an animal, is noticed to be amiss, a dose of physic should be administered, composed of from one to two ounces of Epsom salts, dissolved in half a pint of warm water or gruel, and to which should be added one or two drachms of powdered ginger; to prevent griping. Preventive measures are more successful, and should at once be instituted when this disease shows itself in a flock. Amongst those may be mentioned the feeding of oil-cake, which will be found to act “ like a charm,” Another excellent concomitant to successful prevention, will be found in the common salt, which acts as a stomachic and tonic. Sheep are very fond of it; and, in moderate quantities, it has a. beneficient effect on the health. It is a good plan to keep, constantly, large lumps of rook salt in the troughs, . so as to enable the sheep to lick the salt when they choose. Rook salt is far preferable to the common salt.