FEEDING SICK STOCK

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21206, 31 August 1940, Page 19 (Supplement)

FEEDING SICK STOCK

APPETISING FOOD NEEDED Sick animals should be induced by every possible means to feed themselves. A natural appetite, however slight, is far preferable to the maintenance of strength by forcible feeding. Some attendants on sick animals nauseate them by offering too great quantities of food or insufficient varieties. A change of diet will frequently start an animal feeding again. There is an art in inducing sick animals to feed, and many animals will feed for one man and for no one else.

It is a customary and sound practice to offer a sick horse a bran mash, but it must be borne in mind that horses very rapidly tire of wet bran and, having taken a few mashes, will often refuse to touch any more A handful of hay chaff mixed with the bran will sometimes induce them to eat it up, but, generally speaking, they soon long for something crisper and more tasty. For sick cattle the use of a lot of wet bran is a mistake. If cattle have left off chewing the cud and will keep on taking wet bran, this soon sets up fermentation in the paunch, and leads to troublesome indigestion and nausea. In feeding sick cattle the difference in their digestion from that of the horse must be taken into consideration, and whilst fermentation of the contents of the first stomach is easily set up by injudicious feeding, the forcible administration of fluid foods is better tolerated by cattle than by horses. Preparation of Food There is always a right and wrong way to prepare foods for sick animals, and special care should be taken to make them as appetising as possible. In the first place, all feeding utensils should be kept scrupulously clean. A bran mash, properly prepared, is appetising. If not carefully prepared, it is a sodden, lnappetising mess. It should be made by placing 31b of best bran in a utensil which has just been scalded out with boiling water. Two pints of boiling water are poured on the bran, an ounce of table salt sprinkled on it, and after stirring well up it is covered with a clean sack and left to steam for fifteen minutes. If not eaten by the animal in half an hour, it should be thrown away. He may eat it when it has gone cold, but he will not eat it when it has gone sour, and the sour smell left behind it may put him off his other food. Except where the throat is sore and prevents the proper mastiftcation and swallowing of hard and dry food, sick horses and cattle generally can be tempted to eat a little good hay. In reasonable quantities this is an excellent diet, as it increases the flow of saliva, thus assisting digestion and increasing appetite, and in cattle very often starts the patient chewing the cud.

Although, as a rule, in case of high fever, it is not advisable to feed much com, it is wise to give a few oats to keep stock feeding, and to maintain their strength, to letting their condition run down, and seeing them emerge from an illness physical wrecks which need a prolonged rest for convalescence. Discretion must of course, be observed in this respect, and even in the case of animals convalescent from illness the grain allowance must be only a small one, and should be alternated with a laxative diet, such as roots, green food, if in season, and a daily hot mash.