THE FARM.

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 11, 19 October 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE FARM.

INDIGESTION AMONGST YOUNG CALVES.

On some of the large dairy farms of Ayrshire, Lincolnshire, and other counties, there have been many cases of troublesome indigestion amongst young calves. When the little patients are a few days old they get dull and sleepy ; they do not take enough of milk properly to nourish them ; their bowels are irregular—at first constipated, subsequently much relaxed ; the milk passes through the patient imperfectly digested, and in hard coagula. The calves are much distended, and groan with pain. Sometimes the abdominal pain causes such laboured breathing and blowing that the cases have been mistaken for those of inflamed lungs. Many of the calves continue dull, distended, 1 and pained for a week or ten days ; and, unless carefully managed, about half die in four or five days. The post-mortem appearances are tolerably uniform. In the fourth or true digestive stomach, which at this early age is alone in active use, clots of undigested curd, difficult or impossible to be reduced by the gastric juices or movements, provoke acidity and irritation, and sometimes lead on to fatal inflammation of the stomach and bowels. Calves allowed to suck their dams appear as liable to suffer as those brought up on the pail. Calves dropped two or tfiree months ago, whilst the cows were in the yards and living on dry food, were more frequently and severely attacked than those which have arrived since the cows had a full allowance of succulent grass. This circumstance, together with the symptoms and post-mortem appearances, explain tolerably satisfactorily the nature of these attacks*

The milk is too rich in 44 casein ; ” the tender young stomach is unable to break down and digest the tough, hard curd naturally formed ; constipation at the time of birth, or immediately following, greatly aggravates the mischief, A similar state of matters not infrequently occurs with young infants deprived of their natural sustenance and fed upon cow’s milk, which is specially rich in 44 casein.”

Rational treatment, early adopted, is usually successful. The calf, as soon as dropped, should have a couple of ounces of mixed castor and linseed oil dissolved in a little milk. This will clear the bowels of the meconium and hard faeces, which, accumulating, often prove the beginning of mischief. The cows, especially if they have large bountiful udders, should be milked nearly dry twice or three times a day, so as to prevent a greedy calf gorging itself.

By bran mashes and soft laxative food, endeavour for the first ten days or a fortnight to dilute the milk so that it shall not form tough, firm coagula. So much by way of prevention. If, notwithstanding such precautions, the calf is attacked, his food must receive first attention.

He will care little for his milk, and will refuse the teat ; but he must be supported. His weakened gastric organs, unable properly to manage the ordinary milk, will usually digest a less concentrated mixture, and the calf should have from a bottle, at intervals of three hours, about half a pint of new milk from its own mother, or from a similiarly recently-calved cow, diluted with an equal quantity of lime water. Thus diluted, the milk is easily digested, and there is little risk of its forming the solid refractory, irritating coagula. In some troublesome cases where, in spite of lime water, the milk continues to cause acidity and gastric disturbances, it is wise for a week or ten days to interdict milk altogether, and support the calf on well-boiled thin linseed and oatmeal gruel, in which a raw egg may occasionally be stirred. The milk, after a time, may be gradually returned to. Five to ten drops of hydrochloric acid, given in a wine-glass of water immediately before feeding, often prevents undue acidity, further acts as an antiseptic and tonic, and usually proves more permanently effectual than the carbonates of soda and magnesia, which are often prescribed in such cases. By a little oil or magnesia, given as required, the bowels must be kept in a natural state. —North British A griculturist. THE RABBIT NUISANCE IN VICTORIA. The rabbit nuisance, which has attained such dimensions in this Colony, is not one whit less formidable in Australia. The enormous tracts of country covered by the mallee scrub, over which these mischievous vermin are so rapidly spreading, bids fair to make the vast island continent no better than a rabbit warren—in fact an idea is not easily given of the extent to which the rabbit nuisance has spread in the north-west portion of the colony—the mallee scrub. It may be mentioned, however, as one illustrative incident, that 2,500 dozen skins were sent down by the storekeeper at Corack (north of St. A maud), to the Denton Mills, East Collington, last week. This was the result of three weeks’ trapping.