GRASS SICKNESS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3938, 11 August 1937, Page 3

GRASS SICKNESS

SCOTLAND’S APPALLING HORSE TERROR. FUTURE OF CLYDESDALES AT STAKE. Scottish farmers are distracted by grievous losses among horses due to the mysterious malady known as grass sickness, which last year killed off 1500 horses and which has broken cut again this year, writes Robert Macintyre in the Weekly Scotsman It is now more than a year since the Government was appealed to by farmers in Scotland to take steps to find a cure for the malady, but so far horse owners are without any reliable advice on steps to eradicate or prevent the scourge. Despite every effort by scientists end veterinary surgeons the cause and cure of the illness remain unknown. The only comforting announcement by the Agricultural Research Council was that there were real hopes of preventive measures being discovered. That announcement was made months ago. Since then several \aluable Clydesdale horses have been lost. A RECENT DISORDER. Grass sickness in horses was firsr apparent in 1908, when a few cases cnly occurred. Since then the disease i has made insidious progress. During ■ •he first decade it was most prevalent in Ross-shire, Moray, and the North East. It has since spread south, to the Lothians and the North of England, while cases have even been recorded in Kent. There have always been two distinct types of grass sickness—the galloping or 48 hours’ type and the lingering or three months’ type, with the tapid type claiming more and more of the victims. In areas over 500 feet above sea level and in coastal areas within three miles of the sea the terror has been less than in the inland areas under 500 feet sea level. This little detail, insignificant though it seemed when first I took note of it, links up with the fact that the terror is worst during dry, warm weather and least virulent in a rainy period. Thus, the sickness has always been worse in the drier east coast . than in the moister west. Also, during the great drought in the north 1 east in May and June of last year, the . terror was the worst on record. The sickness always begins to be , noticed May, reaching its peak in ■ June and tapering off in July. This ; fact that the sickness shows up in i May indicates that it is associated with the early grass, hence its name. There is the possibility, then, that farmers fail to prepare their horses by laxative dieting for the change over from dry to grass feed. Farm animals are more or less stable fed on dry food all winter. Having had little or nothing green in their diet for so long they eat somewhat greedily when opportunity offers in the late spring or early summer, If they have not been prepared for this change over they suffer. PLANT POISON POSSIBILITY. More important, probably, is the * fact that animals are much more j liable to suffer in early summer from

the eating of poisonous plants. Slight poisoning by weeds is, of. course, quite common among farm animals, for the keen instinct which protects wild animals from poisonous plants has become dulled in domesticated animals. Thus we find that hemlock has been blamed for this appalling horse terror. Hemlock is one of the commonest wild flowers to-day, and it is significant that it is at its most poisonous, is most deadly, during the months of May, June and July, when its fruit ripens. But why has the sickness, if it is hemlock poisoning, only become virulent in recent years? Two answers might be given to this question One is that hemlock was not nearly so profuse twenty years ago as now. The other is that our modern Clydesdales may have, due to inbreeding, weaker digestive systems than their garron forebears and may therefore be more liable to succumb to hemlock poisoning.

Neither of those answers is particularly convincing, nor do they explain away the slow spread of the sickness down the East Coast of Britain. Although it is claimed that tile terror is neither directly infectious or contagious, it is disturbingly evident that the same or adjacent holdings lose animals year by year, and that the malady has steadily spread south. MYSTERY DEEPENS. Many suggestions have been made as to the probable cause of this mysterious malady, from morning frost to sunspots. Many questions, too, have been asked. Is it mere coincidence that the advance of the wild white clover has run parallel with the insurgence of the terror? Has the withholding of lime from land in recent years any bearing on the disorder? A hundred such questions might be asked, but most of them would onlyserve to deepen the mystery. Meanwhile the horses are succumbing to the dread scourge. At first this disorder mainly claimed geldings of three to five years of age. Now all horses and mares from ages one to 2.1 are being swept off. That, is why work horses, especially mares, are now £2O beyond their economic values. Worst still, so alarming are the ravages of the plague that, certain insurance companies are now declining to insure against the risk, and the farmers are at their wits’ end to know how to protect themselves against possible financial ruin. A cure must be found. The future of our Clydesdales is at stake.