The Veterinarian Part 19

TREATMENT: Place the animal in as comfortable a place as possible, permitting as much fresh air as possible, but avoiding drafts. Blanket the animal if the weather is chilly, also hand rub the legs and bandage with woolen cloths.

Administer Chlorate of Potash, two ounces; Nitrate of Potash, two ounces; Tannic Acid, one-half ounce; Mola.s.ses, eight ounces. Mix well and place one tablespoonful on the tongue every three or four hours.

Feed soft food, as wheat bran mashes and steamed rolled oats, or boiled vegetables. Give drinking water with the chill taken off.

It is always necessary to apply liniments to the throat, and I would advise the application of Aqua Ammonia Fort., four ounces; Oil of Turpentine, four ounces, and Sweet Oil, four ounces. Apply and rub in well two or three times a day.

STRINGY MILK

CAUSE: Cows wading or standing in stagnant pools of water. Frequently stringy milk results from fungi entering the udder. This takes on an infectious form, and several cows may become affected at one time.

SYMPTOMS: Although the milk appears perfectly normal when first milked, it becomes stringy after being let stand for a few hours. If a needle is inserted in the milk and slowly withdrawn, the milk will adhere to the point and have a stringy appearance. If the cow is examined carefully, the temperature will be found to be elevated a degree or two, the appet.i.te poor and the nose dry.

TREATMENT: Feed laxative food and see that they have fresh water to drink. Also, place two drams of Soda Bisulphite once or twice a day in gelatin capsule and give with capsule gun. Do not permit the cow to come in contact with stagnant pools of water that carry this infection.

Perhaps the best plan is to fence out all such stagnant pools of water.

SUPPRESSION OF MILK

(Absence of Milk)

CAUSE: Unusually due to poor health, debility, emaciated, chronic diseases of the bag, or wasting of its glands from various diseases or impure food. Sometimes this condition is produced without any apparent cause.

TREATMENT: Determine the cause, if possible, and remove it. Feed warm wheat bran mashes, steamed rolled oats or barley. Administer Pulv. Anise Seed, one-half ounce, two or three times a day. This has a very good effect in this particular condition. Also rub the bag and strip the teats often, and apply Oil of Lavender. The majority of cases respond to this treatment if not due to chronic disease of the bag.

TAPEWORM

CAUSE: Small portions of tapeworms, consisting of one or more segments, are occasionally seen in the droppings of infected cattle. The infection is undoubtedly taken in with the food or water, infection being spread by the eggs of the parasite, and being expelled with the feces of an infected animal. The eggs being swallowed by insects, worms or snails, which act as an intermediate host, and which when swallowed accidentally by cattle while grazing or drinking carry with them into the animal's stomach the infectious stage of the tapeworm. Aged cattle do not seem to suffer much from tapeworms, but in calves these parasites cause scours and rapid emaciation.

SYMPTOMS: Emaciation, diarrhoea, loss of flesh, ravenous appet.i.te, paleness of the mucous membranes of the mouth and eyes, and the segments of the tapeworms can occasionally be seen in the droppings.

TREATMENT: Withhold all food from eighteen to twenty-four hours, and to calves from two to eight months old give two teaspoonfuls of gasoline in a pint of milk. To yearlings, place one tablespoonful in a gelatin capsule and give with capsule gun. To cattle one year and over, place one ounce in capsule and give with capsule gun. Repeat this treatment two or three times during intervals of a week or two.

TEXAS FEVER

CAUSE: Due to a micro organism (Piropalasna Bigenium) which imbeds itself in the red blood corpuscles. This disease is transmitted or scattered by means of a tick which drops from the affected animal. The disease has various names, according to the locality in which it appears. Among them are: Spanish Fever, Red Water, Black Water, Red Murrian, Australian Cattle Tick Fever, etc.

SYMPTOMS: Loss of appet.i.te. The animal ceases to ruminate, or does not chew the cud, and every sign of unthriftiness is displayed; a high temperature, and when the animal is standing the back is arched, but the animal, however, prefers to lie down most of the time and shows desire for solitude. The urine is very dark in color, hence the name "Red or Black Water." The disease is usually fatal, the animal dies within a few weeks.

TREATMENT: My advice is, when this disease once develops, or an animal shows any of the particular signs that I have mentioned, secure the services of a competent veterinarian, who will immunize by the use of serums, disinfectants, etc.

TICKS

Ticks are very difficult to kill, on account of their protected location, as ear ticks are not affected by dipping, and remedies strong enough for this purpose are liable to injure the animal, but these parasites may be expelled by pouring into the ear Carbolated Sweet or Cottonseed Oil with favorable results.

TUBERCULOSIS

CAUSE: The bacilli of Tuberculosis thrive in animals, especially those in a weakened condition, or when exposed to atmospheric changes, unwholesome food, dark and poorly ventilated stables. They gain entrance into the body through the lungs or the intestinal ca.n.a.l. They lodge in various portions of the lungs or intestines, and multiply very rapidly, causing irritations and formations, nodules, cysts or abscesses. They are the means of the bacillus entering the blood, which carries the infection to other parts of the body, as the spleen, liver, udder, womb, etc. Cows affected with generalized tuberculosis, that is to say, the infection is confined to not only a small portion of the lungs, but also to any of the above mentioned organs, etc., may give birth to a calf having general tuberculosis at birth, or shortly after, due to the cow's blood circulating through the body of the calf before birth.

SYMPTOMS: This disease may pa.s.s a casual observer unnoticed, although in some instances we notice a slight cough, unthriftiness, dullness. The coughing is best marked after taking a drink of water in the morning and then being exercised. Some animals keep up in good condition and look perfectly healthy while some get emaciated, have constipation, variable appet.i.te, and sometimes growths or abscesses can be felt or seen in the udder or glands of the body and neck.

However, cattle showing any weakness, or the above symptoms, should be tested for tuberculosis by a competent veterinarian who has had the privileges of a veterinary education and experience in the administration of tuberculin.

TREATMENT: It is not advisable to treat tuberculosis. Thus far, medicine has failed to relieve the affected animal, or kill the bacillus of tuberculosis in a living animal. The infected animals should be disposed of on account of tubercular cows giving birth to tubercular calves, the milk being unfit for human consumption, unless it is thoroughly pasteurized. Infected cattle should be separated from healthy ones, as the disease spreads very rapidly. Drinking and feeding troughs are a means of spreading the infection, therefore, suspected cases of tuberculosis should be tested and if the animals react, they should be slaughtered, and if the disease is localized, pa.s.sed for human consumption. The meat of animals suspected of having tuberculosis, or reacting from tuberculin test, should be well cooked.

TWISTED STOMACH WORM

CAUSE: Cattle become affected with this worm by grazing in pastures in which infested cattle have grazed and scattered their droppings. The worms in the stomach produce a mult.i.tude of eggs of microscopic size, which pa.s.s out of the body with the feces. In warm weather, these eggs hatch in a few hours; if the temperature remains about freezing point, they soon die. The eggs are also destroyed, by dryness, but, on the other hand, moisture, if the weather is warm, favors their development.

The twisted worm measures one-half inch to one and one-half inches in length.

SYMPTOMS: General weakness, loss of flesh, anemia, dullness, capricious appet.i.te, excessive thirst, paleness of the skin and mucous membranes of the mouth and eyes, and dropsical swelling, especially that of the lower jaw. Diarrhoea always accompanies this condition and if the feces is carefully examined the small worms may be seen wriggling about like little snakes, or when an animal dies; and the fourth stomach is opened, these worms can be seen in large quant.i.ties.

TREATMENT: Preventive measures are important, as damp, marshy soil favors the development of the embryos. High sloping ground is preferable for pasture. If low ground is used it should be properly drained; burning over the pasture will destroy most of the young worms on the gra.s.s and on the ground. Cattle should be supplied with water from flowing streams or wells and not stagnant ponds.

MEDICAL TREATMENT: Withhold all food for twenty-four hours; then administer Oil of Turpentine, placing it in an ounce capsule and give with capsule gun. Follow in six hours with a physic consisting of Aloin, two drams; ginger, two drams. Place in capsule and give with capsule gun. When this worm develops in calves, give as follows: One dram of Turpentine to a calf three months old, four drams to a calf six months old, six drams to a yearling. To cattle two years and over, give equivalent dose, or an ounce. The physic should be reduced in the same proportions as that of Turpentine.

VERMINOUS BRONCHITIS

(Lung Worms)

CAUSE: Due to worm or parasite called Strongylus Micrurus, a small thread-like worm two to four inches in length, found in the bronchial tubes, a portion of the lungs. The life history of this parasite is not known, but infection is apparently derived through the medium of pastures where infested cattle have grazed. Young cattle are more seriously affected than old animals, especially common in low marshy pastures.

SYMPTOMS: This form of bronchitis usually affects the entire herd; the animals become poor, unthrifty, hacking, coughing, especially at night, and sometimes animals actually cough up worms.

TREATMENT: Various treatments have been recommended for Verminous Bronchitis, or Lung Worm, as injecting Turpentine into the windpipe or fumigating animals by placing them in a closed shed or barn and burning sulphur, compelling the affected animals to inhale the fumes. This treatment perhaps is the safest and the most effective. A person should remain in the enclosed shed and when the fumes become so strong that there is danger of suffocation, open the doors and windows. This treatment should be repeated every week until coughing ceases.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph of cow.]

HOLSTEIN COW FINDERNE PRIDE JOHANA RUE 121083.

28,403.7 lbs. Milk; 1,176.47 lbs. b.u.t.ter Fat.

Somerset Holstein Breeders Co., Somerville, N. J. World's Record Cow.