RICKETS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20543, 11 May 1932, Page 4

RICKETS.

MORTALITY AMONG HOGGETS. Field work at the Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, has shown that rickets is ono of the diseases responsible for losses among Canterbury hoggets, and an intensive experiment with 14 typical cases affecting 11uionths old sheep has teen carried out to ascertain the therapeutic value of bone flour and vitamin D, and bono flour alone, in treatment of the disease. The report states that the initial and final average weights of all hoggets used in this experiment are of importance in that they demonstrate how growth can be retarded when a diet containing an insufficiency of either lime or phosphorus is fed. The weights were 44.8 and 61.11b respectively. Age for age, the ricketsaffected animals are at least fifty per cent, lighter than average Canterbury hoggets. The appearance of this mineral deficiency disease in the winter, when, natural herbage reaches its lowest nutritive value and worm parasites are most aggressive, indicates how treatment for the latter may be followed by disastrous results. Furthermore, wnen stud animals are affected, their conformation and thriftness may be impaired for life. The marked response to treatment cannot be credited to bone flour and radiostoleum having special feeding values. Their therapeutic purpose has been to restore body functions, in particular proper bone formation, to physiological normality. ,