FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6890, 22 April 1929, Page 10

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE

Pari Rabbits Play The following extract from an article in ‘A Veterinary Dictionary’ by W. C. Miller, respecting the part that rabbit's play in the spread of foot and mouth disease, is of interest to farmers;— “The virus appears to retain its viality for very considerable lengths of time in nature, and owing to this fact the disease is spread by a host of intermediate objects which have been in contact with affected animals. The following is not an exhaustive list,, but it gives the more important: —Hides, hair, wool, hav, straw, sacks and packing fabrics generally, milk and milk products, farmyard manure, watering troughs, mangers, various utensils, market pens, railway trucks, drovers and cattlemen and personal belongings, small animals find vermin (especially cals and clogs, hares and rabbits, rats, mice and birds). In a letter dated stb March, 1929 to Mr. J. P. Kalaugher, secretary, of the New Zealand Dairy Breeds (Federation, Mr. Miller makes the following statement with regard to rabbits. “Regarding the subject of the remainder of your letter I think perhaps a word cf explanation, more full than that which is given in the dictionary, is necessary regarding the role of rabbits among other small animals in the spread of foot and mouth disease. The remarks really apply to the rabbit as a denizen of the fields, rather than to it as a pet or fancier’s animal. It is chiefly a menace when and where it exists* in a field belonging to an owner whose cattle are affected by foot and mouth disease, and, becoming infected about tho feet and legs by contact with saliva-covered herbage, it passes through a boundary hedge or fence into the laud of a neighbouring owner of healthy cattle. The rabbit itseli does not suffer from an attack of the disease except. (1 believe), after experimental injection of virus into tae pads of the feet or into the gums, out it may carry virus for comparatively short distances and infect herbage, etc. elsewhere, which may lead to a new outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the vicinity. “Regarding the possibility of me imported Angora rabbit acting a 3 a menace, to the cattle in New Zealand, T am of the opinion that it is not so much the rabbit itself which is to be feared, as the, bedding m aterial, litter, food, etc., which accompanies it.' If, as is the custom in some countries, the rabbits arc removed from their boxes at the port of disembarkation, and all litter and unused food-stuffs arc destroyed by burning and the . box disinfected—(preferably by singeing with a painter’s blow-lamp, which can be done effectively and rapidly)—and the rabbit is given fresh (New Zealand produced) litter and food, I do not think there would be any risk of introducing the disease among New Zealand cattle. “It -would, of course, bo advisable that each imported rabbit be scrutinised carefully by a veterinary inspector at the port of enfry, and a.uy which is not absolutely healthy should be detained in quarantine or destroyed, but 1 have no doubt that such a system of examination is already in existence. A further precaution might be that each consignment be accompanied by an official certificate of health stating specifically that the rabbits have not come from an area where foot and mouth disease is known to exist at inc time of dispatch.”