DISEASE AMONG STOCK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19418, 28 August 1926, Page 14

DISEASE AMONG STOCK.

CAUSES OF BUSH-SiICKMEGS. REVIEW OF INVESTIGATIONS; USE OF IRON AS PREVENTIVE. Two' interesting addresses on the prevalence of btisb. sickness among stock and experiments to find the cause and remedy were given last evening to the Auckland Agricultural Science Club by Mr. \\*. I. Collins, 'district superintendent of tho Department of Agriculture, and Mr. B. C. Aston, chief chemist of the department. . Professor W. Riddel presided, Mr. Collins said that as far as ho knew bush sickness was confined to Auckland province. Tho disease lad been known for many years, having been discovered in the early days of ths runs in tho vicinity of Malamata. It was. estimated that about 1,000,000 acres in the counties of Matamata, Tauranga and Rotorua were affected, and throughout the whole of the area great difficulty v,- f „s experienced by the farmers in carrying on. It was practically impossible to' rear lambs ou tho country. They appeared to do well for about two months but in November and December they became listless, and unless they were moved to better country a grtfat percentage of them were lost. Mr. Collins mentioned an instance of a flock of 900 lambs being reduced by the end of January to 280 saleable animals, through tlm ravages of the disease Dry ewes seemed to do remarkably well *on the affected areas providod reasonable care was taken, and they were not put on rough coarse feed. One lot the lecturer had in mind fattened well' and sold at good prices. Tattening of Bullocks. Dairy farmers in the area experienced difficulty in building up their herds. The necessity for shifting tho beasts to nonaffected areas involved increased costs and also prevented tho farmers from carrying out completo tests. Farmers who wero i able to run two farms, one inside and tho other outside the disease area, were. abl<v to operate profitably by changing tho herds on the two farms. Bullocks did well for a start and fattened well, and during the past winter many fine lots had been sol i at Hamilton and West field. However, if the cattle were kept for any length of time on the affected areas, they went off. The first symptom of bush sickness in lambs was a little running of tho eyes and then the lambs became listless and the wool became hard After a time they went down and refused to feed. In young cattle, the coat became hard, and the animals gradually became tucked up and refused to cat, although to all appearances there was plenty of good feed in the paddocks. Examination of bushsick animals revealed that they 1 wero very anaemic and emaciated, but postmortem tests revealed little that could be definitely ascribed to th® sickness. Treatment of Pastures. While treatment was being given to some animals, attention was being Atvoted to the soil, in an endeavour to rid tho country of tho sickness through treatmerit,of tho pastures. v jExperimonts bad convinced lihe investigators r that to find the cause of the disease and ascertain the best-/corrective - measures, investigation would have to bo made with regard to , the food supply. They had found out the sickness was not transmitted by beast to beast. Mr. Aston said the disease -was first investigated- by /the late Mr. A.. Park, of Tauranga, in 1889, Unfortunately, Mr. Park had confined his attention to sheep and Mr. Aston was euro that if he* had experimented with cattle the trouble would have been solved it that time. Mr. Park had endeavoured to give the sheep the same treatment; as was given 'to anaemic girls, namely; iron. Sheep, however j would not take iron as cattle wouldi .When the chemists were Called in to study the disease, they found that in the animals and the feed there was a deficiency of phosphates. Howover, investigation showed this deficiency was not the cause of the diceaso,' for pastures elsewhere with an equal deficiency of phosphate did not affect the fitoek with bush Experiments With Iron. Experiments were then made with iron, soils oeing treated in some cai,es and the iron being administered to the animals in various forms in other cases, with varying success. Prior to, the discovery of the efßcncy of iron in combating . tho disease, the investigators had rejected the theories that over-.quantities of copper and silica in the pastures were causes. lodihedrenching, also proved useless. Tho methods .of administering iron by drenches proving difficult, experiments were mada with licks but this* was cot entirely 'satisfactory as some animals got too much and others too little. A suggestion ■ had been made that the irou might bo given through the drinking water, a solution being allowed to drop into the troughs by some mechanical means, and it was probable that this method would bo successful. In the meantime, farmers ia the affected areas were able . to . acquire iron salts for drenching their stock, but the trouble was that some of them would not give the. prescribed doses, following ruleof tjmpib methods of .administering the corrective, instead of adhering strictly to the formula given with salts when they were purchased, The speakers wero accorded hearty votes of thanks for their addresses.