CARE OF YOUNG STOCK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23002, 1 April 1938, Page 15

CARE OF YOUNG STOCK

CONTROL OF PARASITES ATTENTION IN AUTUMN NEED FOR GOOD FEEDING BV SUNDOWN KB Young stock, both sheep and cattle, particularly need care and good feeding with fattening foods at this season. No food will do them much good, however, if they are infested with internal parasites. One of tho important jobs this month, therefore, will be, if possible, to clean out these pests, and at the same time provide food for the stock which will build them up against subsequent attack. The best preliminary lino of attack on intestinal worms of which we know at present is to drench both calves and hoggets with the nicotine-bluestone mixture so often recommended in these pages. But this is fairly drastic "medicine," and at best serves to clear out a large proportion of the worms. Except in so far as the copper sulphate (bluestone) aids in enabling the animal to assimilate more iron, this drench does not'act as a preventive of further infestation. On most farms tho soil and pasture is simply teeming with the minute, newly hatched worms ready to reinfest their hosts, and to prevent these becoming established again in the animals after drenching should be the farmer's aim. Lick Ingredients There are various ingredients, both mineral and vegetable, which can be most conveniently incorporated in salt licks, which play an important part in destroying the young worms when they are first taken into the paunch. But, more important still, intestinal worms do not establish or thrive in animals having iron-rich blood. The worms are, evidently, an instrument of nature to end quickly the sufferings of anaemic animals. If then, one can keep young animals from becoming anaemic they will not become seriously worm-infected. Iron, which serves in the blood stream as a medium for carrying oxygen from the lungs to all the tissues, is the essential to prevent anaemia and consequent worm infection. But it has been found that animals have a very limited ability to assimilate inorganic iron—unless it is in association with some other minerals, notably cobalt and copper, which appear to stimulate the action of those glands which control iron assimilation. Worm Prevention The best preventive of worm infection in young stock is undoubtedly to supply them with a properly compounded salt lick medicated to destroy the young worms as soon as they enter the paunch, and mineralised with iron, cobalt, copper and some other of the "minor" mineral elements, to enrich the blood stream and prevent anaemia. Young stock, therefore, should have available at this season, and throughout the winter, both a good mineralised salt lick and food suitable for the season —in autumn and early winter rich in carbohydrates, and in spring and summer rich in proteir To provide this type of od a3 far I as possible throughout autumn and winter, something more than superphosphate is needed. Indeed, all; our popular "commercial" fertilisers, or even a combination of them, \fall far short of the perfect balanco provided by animal manure combined with vegetable organic matter. However, they are 'the best we have available at present, and it remains for us to make intelligent use of them. Top-dress With Nitrogenous Manure Tho greatest bulk, and consequently the highest proportion of carbohydrates. will be secured by applying a nitrogenous manure at this season. Nitrogen, whether it bo in the form of blood and bone manure, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda or other preparation, will encourage rapid and luxuriant leaf growth. This, in turn, because of its greater leaf area, can extract more food matter from the air and waning sunlight than can the less leafy plants fertilised with phosphate manures which, of course, are more necessary and valuable in summer because of their stimulation of root growth, and encouragement of a higher protein content in the leaf. I should therefore recommend farmers, and more particularly those who are wintering young stock, to use a large proportion of sulphate of ammonia or other nitrogenous manure in their autumn top-dressing, which should be applied this month. Potash, superphosphate, lime or other dressings found to be particularly necessary for the soil of any special district may, of course, be used also, but on no account should nitrogenous manures be overlooked at this season.