RISKS TO ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20243, 1 May 1929, Page 7

RISKS TO ANIMALS.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE

SOURCES OF INFECTION. The virus appears to retain its vitality 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, says Mr. W. C. Millar in an article on foot-and-mouth disease in " A Veterinary Dictionary." . -The following is not an exhaustive list of those objects, but it gives tho more important:— Hides, hair, wool, hay, 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 and vermin (especially cats and dogs, hares and rabbits, rats, mice and birds.) < In a letter dated March 5, to Mr. J. P. Kalarigher, secretary of the New Zealand Dairy Breeds Federation, Mr. Miller makes the following statement w:h regard to rabbits:'

" Regarding the subject of the remainder of your letter I think perhaps a word of .explanation, more full than that which is given in the Dictionary, is necessary regarding the role of rabbits among other small an'mals in the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. Position of the Rabbit. " 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 the feet and legs by contact -with saliva-covered herbage, it passes through a boundary ftedge or fence into the land of a neighbouring owner of healthy cattle. The rabbit itself does not suffer from an attack of the disease except (I believe) after experimental injection of virus into the pads of the feet or into the gums, but it may carry virus for comparatively short distances and infect herbage elsewhere, which may lead to a new outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the vicinity. / . "Regarding the possibility of the imported Angora rabbit acting as a menace to the cattle in New Zealand, I ami of the opinion that it is not so much the rabbit itself which is to- be feared, as the bedding material, litter, food, etc., which accompanies it. Little Bisk from Importations.

"If, as is the custom. ;in some countries, the rabbits; ate removed from tlcnr boxes at the port of disembarkation,, and alf litter and uaused food-stuffs are idestroyed by burning, and the box disin-' fected—preferably by singeing with- a painter's blow-lamp, which can be done effectively and rapidly—and the rabbit is given fresh locally produced litter and food, I do nob think; there would lie any risk of introducing the disease among ( New Zealand cattle.

" It would, of course, be advisable that' each imported rabbit be scrutinised carefully by a veterinary inspector at the port of entry, and any which is not absolutely healthy should be detained in quarantine or destroyed, but I have ijo doubt that such a system or examination is already in existence. A further precaution xoight be that each consignment be accompanied by an official certificate of health stating specifically that the rabbits have not come from an area wjiero foot-and-mouth disease is ' known to exist. at .tfee time of dispatch." ■