RICKETS IN STOCK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1938, Page 3

RICKETS IN STOCK

SYMPTOMS OF DISEASE. Rickets is a disease affecting principally young stock, such as foals and yearlings, but it also affects other animals: in fact, probably all animals possessed of bones. In foals and calves the shafts of the metacarpals—the long bone between the knee and fetlock —are the first to give way, the curvatures being from within outwards; thus the knees are thrown outwards, and the toes drawn inwards, pigeon-toed. When the bones of the posterior, or hind extremities, are affected, the toes are turned outwards and the hock inwards, the animal being then what is termed cow-hocked. The joints and extremities of the bones sometimes become enlarged, hot, and painful, causing extreme lameness. This disease appears to be caused by a deficiency in the food of salts of lime or of want of power o( assimilating such salts on account of the absence in the food of other constituents which are necessary to healthy digestion. Carnivorous animals are liable to rickets if fed on meat without bones, and so are pigs if their feed consists almost entirely of potatoes, which are poor in salts of lime. The disease is less frequently seen in young stock running on soils rich in lime, such as those of chalk and limestone, than on soils poor in lime, like those of gravel, sandstone, granite, etc.

The first symptom to be generally noticed is decrease in power of movement from one place to another, and fatigue from comparatively slight exertion. There is gradual swelling of the joints, chiefly of the hock, knee, and fetlocks. The animal may knuckle over in front and behind, or his hind fetlocks may descend down to the ground. In bad cases the difficulty of moving about gradually increases until the animal is unable to walk or even stand, and dies from starvation and exhaustion. In rickets the bones become so abnormally brittle that they are apt to break with little or no unusual provation. If the foal or calf is not already weaned it might be necessary to put it to a healthy foster mother which has plenty of milk, to which about a pint of limewater is added daily. Sulphate of iron is also very useful in this trouble, about 10 grains of which might be given to a young foal twice a day. If one wants to get the best results, and the foal is old enough to take a little food in addition to its mother’s milk, it is as well to give both mare and foal a couple or' so feeds daily of good, nourishing food, containing the best of chaff, crushed oats, together with a little bran if they will take it. Mix about a cupful of pure raw linseed oil daily in the feed, a little in each feed, but discontinue or lessen the quantity if the droppings become too soft.