PULPY KIDNEY IN LAMBS.

Shannon News, 5 October 1926, Page 1

PULPY KIDNEY IN LAMBS.

■-—; + . WHAT CAUSES THE TROUBLE? REQUIRES FURTHER INVEST!- ‘ GATION. One thing which 1 it might bo supposed Hawke’s Bay would have escaped this season is deaths of Jambs from the trouble .known as “Renal Congestion,” or, in less technical language, “pulpy kidney,” writes “Sundowner” in the “Hawke’s Bay Tribune.” It is generally accepted, and is maintained by the Government Live Stock Department, that renal congestion is the direct result of over- ! nutrition, and is claimed to be preI valent,only where the ewes have an over-abundant supply of milk producing food. Under these circumstances cne would suppose that Hawke’s Bay, especially in such areas as were seriously affected during the recent • drought, and where there is even now so little feed that the lambing ewes have far from regained their usual lambing condition would have escaped scot free this season. Such is, however, not the case, as recently several farmers in these districts have advised that deaths, apparently from renal congestion, have already taken . place among their biggest lambs. This would suggest that- overnutrition was not the only, if even the reai, cause of these annoying fatalities, and though the annual loss of lambs from this trouble is seldom very great, it would ' undoubtedly pay farmers to do some thinking along lines which might get at the root of the evil and enable preventive measures to be taken. / . Symptoms and Supposed Cause. It is generally -tho biggest and fattest lambs that are affected, between the age of four and eight weeks, and the first intimation that the fanner receives that anything is wrong is when he finds three or four of his best lambs dead in the paddock. A post-mortem examina-tion-reveals that tho lamb is internally in a fatty condition; - especially surrounding the kidneys, and these organs are in such a pulpy condition .that they are liable to break when an attempt' is made to remove them for examination. The assumption is that the ewe, with an abundance of milk, tempts the lamb to #orge. To this is 1 added the nibbfings of grass which fhe lamb is supposed, to eat at this stage, and tho resultant over-supply of blood presumed to be greater than tho kidneys of a growing lamb can cope with, eventually meaning a breakdown of their tissue. In support of this theory it is recognised that the trouble usually ceases immediately the lambs have been docked, or at any rate-deaths from this cause are much less frerjuent after docking, from which it is assumed that the - bleeding accompanying castration, ’earmarking and docking has relieved the congestion of blood. As against this theory, the writer has seen lambs docked with a searing iron—such as was popular a fen years ago—when loss of blood from ear and purse was quite insufficient to give any relief to possible blood pressure, and the same beneficial re-. suits, as far as a cessation of deaths from renal congestion was concern-cc-rned, was evident. Over-Nutrition Unlikely. It seems quite unnatural that tho healthy organs of a growing lamb should be unable to cope with ail the blood which a nourishing diet of millc can .produce, and we think it highly probable that the cause of deaths from pulpy kidneys will ultimately Vie traced to some purely outside agency, such as a chill in the loins (which wo think the most probable) or possibly to the nibbling by the inexperienced lamb at some herbage which may introduce an irritant to the blood affecting the kidneys. In any case, we think there is room for investigation and experiment by both farmers and the veterinary officers of tho Department of Agriculture in the direction of definitely deciding the cause of these lamb losses. It has been the writer’s experience that with lambs born later in the season, when the grass is much more abundant than at the usual lambing time, but when the nights are wanner and cold rain less frequent, the mortality is hardly noticeable, but being devoid of veterinary knowledge he offers the suggestion in this article with a certain amount of diffidence, in the hope that they will induce helpful investigation of these annoying losses.