FLUKES IN SHEEP.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1273, 26 August 1880, Page 2

FLUKES IN SHEEP.

[By S.J.] Though fluke, I believe, is not a thing which we h.vve auy experience of in this colony, iv some parts of Victoria the effects have been felt ; and, as prevention is better than cure, a few hints on the subject at this season of the year may not be out of place. Sheep should never bo allowed to run on wet laud. Let them have free access to .salt; place it in covered troughs in eveiy paddock, the open >ide of the trough facing the quarter whence the least driving rain comas. Sheep require educating to eat sale.but they socn take to it; aud deficiency of salt in the herbage, and consequently a deficiency of salt in the animal system, is, according to some of the best authorities, the cause of fluke. If we supply that want of the animal, and its constitution contains all the necehsary salts and juices, it is thought that those parasites would have great difficulty in effecting a lodgment. It is also thought that a few flukes do no harm, but when sheep are advanced ia the disease they lire incurable. In examining a sheep as to its health open the wool. The skin should be pink. If it h white, the animal is unsound. Look inside the eyelid, the blood-vessels of a healthy sheep are red ; in a diseased one they are white, while a yellowy gaundif ed eye is certainly unhealthy. Nearly all land that can be drained, can be made healthy for sheep. It is found that bheep brought from the more healthy districts to a fluky one, will contract the disease and die more quickly than sheep rea^si in that district. Pointing to the fact that sheep may be acclimatised in doubtful distiicts. and made capable of resisting the fluke, either by their natural instincts causing them to avoid dangerous swamps, or by their systems being adapted to surrounding circumstances and fortified against these pests. It is found that the tender merino sheep, first frlls a victim, while the Lincoln, or the still stronger crossbred stands the best. Horses and cattle taKe fluke and become thin and emaciated, but waldoni die from that cause. The loss of sheep in England by fluke this year has been the heaviest experienced for some considerable time, and that no doubt owiug to the very wet spring.

In the British Parliament, the Dissen* ters are more numerous than at any time since the Commonwealth. There are 25 Independents, 5 Jews, 5 Baptists, 9 Wesleyans, 29 Prssbyterians, 48 Irish Roman Catholics, 16 Quakers, and 1 Bradlaugh. Of all the epidemics which have ever appeared in Russia, diptheria, on account of the great mortality it causea, is the Tpost d^stniotive.