NOTES ON CONTAGIOUS FOOTROT IN SHEEP.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2458, 31 January 1893, Page 4

NOTES ON CONTAGIOUS FOOTROT IN SHEEP.

The Royal Agricultural Society of England have issued the following notes on foot-rot, for a copy of which we are indebted to the English agricultural correspondent of the Otago Witness : Foot-rot is a contagious disease of the foot of the sheep communicated to healthy sheep by association with diseased sheep, aud also feeding on grounds contaminated with the virus of the disease.

Sheep after being infected may not show any signs of the disease in their feet for from ten to twenty days. Newly purchased sheep with perfectly sound feet, cannot, therefore, be considered safe until the expiration of at least a month. Foot-rot begins on the skin above and between the claws. The skin is slightly reddened and covered with white granular matter, or small warty growths. The disease proceeds downwards on the inner side of the horn of one claw, and, as a rule, one or two feet only are attacked ; very rarely are all four feet affected at the same time.

Treatment of foot-rot.—All the sheep in an infected flock should be carefully examined. Loose and decayed horn should be carefully and completely removed without wounding the sensitive parts or cutting away any of the healthy horn. It is, however, most important to get to the bottom of the diseased parts. Caustic dressings may be applied by ■pouring or drop ping-not by any means of a brush or feather, which soon becomes covered with virus— and the toot should afterwards be protected by a coating of tar.

Most shepherds have some favornrite remedy, but butyr of antimony, chloride of zinc, or pure carbolic acid, applied lightly to the diseased parts, are usually effectual. A powder of acetate of copper or red ooxide of mercury, 10 parts of either mixed with 40 parts of powdered sugar, or made into an ointment with GO parts of vaseline, may be used with insted of the iiqnid dressing. When the disease exists in a large number of sheep they may be driven through a trough containing a solution of carbolic acid, 1 part to 20 or 50 parts of soap and water, according to the severity of the disease ; or instead, the sheep may be turned into a shed the floor of which is covered with quicklime reduced to a coarse powder. But this rough treatment is not so effectual as the other method, which includes a careful preparation of the diseased foot before any remedies are applied. Dressing must be repeated two or three times a week.

Wet land, although it does not produce foot-rot, is very favorable to its continued extension ; if possible, therefore, sheep, while under treatment, should be kept on dry ground,. Land on which sheep with foot-rot have been kept is certainly dangerous for some time ; how long has not yet been ascertained, —qrobably for some months, especially during wet weather or where the soil is moist

Prevention of foot roet-rot. —Sheep cannot be infected with foot-rot if they are bred and kept on an uncoutaminated farm from which all sheep from without are excluded. But, generally, these conditions cannot be secured or maintained, and, instead, the aboption of a system of quarantine for a month, or as long as circumstances will permit, for all newly purchased sheep, before they are allowed to associate with the reap pf the flock, will afford a reasonable amount of security without materially altering the customary course of sheep farming. The exercisp of ordinary caution in the purchase and sale of sheep would have an immediate effect in arresting the spread of the disease, which is chiefly due to the contamination of highways, pastures, railway trucks, fairs, saleyards, and markets by diseased sheep, which are constantly being moved about the country without regard to the serious consequences which necessarily result. Complete isolation of all diseased or eypn suspected sheep should if possible be insisted mi t , e ll ee P which have recovered from the disease ‘sftbftjbj not be returned to the flock until a long period of separation has proved that no return C't j&e disease is to be apprehended.— Complied fi'PP; a pamphlet by Professor G. T, Brown, (O.jf.