DISEASE AMONG COWS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 454, 8 September 1928, Page 12

DISEASE AMONG COWS

NORTH AUCKLAND TROUBLE DEPARTMENT’S INVESTIGATION (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Friday. There is nothing contagious about the fatal disease which has made its appearance among the dairy herds of the North Auckland district, states the Minister of Agriculture, in a letter to Mr. C. E. Macmillan (Tauranga). The acute symptoms exhibited are evidently due to some serious disorganisation of the functions of the nervous system. Departmental officers are investigating the disease, which is believed to be a condition known as paturient eclampsia, which occurs in dairy cows about calving time, usually shortly after calving. There is some obscurity about this trouble, and it is being investigated from a scientific standpoint. A good deal, however, can be done in the way of preventive treatment.

Departmental officers, says the Minister, find that quite the best preventive method —which also applies to the more or less allied condition commonly called milk fever—is to give each cow a good dose of Epsom salts. This should be done both before and immediately after calving. About 12 to 14 ounces can be given before the cow is due to calve, and from 14 to 16 ounces immediately afterwards. In cases where it is possible to give an affected cow medicine by the mouth, before the animal is too far gone to be able to swallow properly, a good dose of purgative medicine, in the form of Epsom salts, will be very likely to bring about recovery.