MOPING SICKNESS IN EWES.

Wairarapa Age, 12 August 1930, Page 7

MOPING SICKNESS IN EWES.

TREACLE AND GLUCOSE TREATMENT. A well-known North Canterbury farmer, who is himself a keen experimentalist, Mr. H. M. Burgin, of Swannanoa, has placed the following information at the disposal of his fellow-farmers by means of the daily press in Canterbury, and as the trouble is widespread the information may be of use to others. At this time of year sheep farmers are always faced with various sheep diseases, and the worst is moping sickness among ewes. Some weeks ago Mr. Leslie, M.R.C.V.S., of Lincoln College, gave a lecture on this disease, and advocated a treatment of treacle and glucose. Having had trouble for years with my ewes before laanbing, Mr. Burgin states, I had been closely watching the flock this year and could see that a number of the ewes were developing that dull appearance that precedes the disease. Up till the day of Mr. Leslie’s lecture I had lost only one, but knew quite well that the trouble was coming. I rang Mr. Leslie at Lincoln College and told him what my ewes were like, and asked him. for full instructions as to quantities and the kind of instruments to use. He at once .suggested that he should come out and examine the sheep and bring a quantity of glucose with him. By the time he arrived two owes had developed the disease visibly, and these he treated, and left me with a very useful fund of information as to how to carry on. The next day I put the whole flocks on the road, and gradually the infected sheep began to lag behind and were easily cut off. In a distance of one mile 26 were cut off in this way, and these were all treated with 12oz of glucose injected with a hypodermic syringe and 21b of treacle melted in hot water and given as a drench. Six of these ewes died, and the 20 left have all recovered and show no signs of dullness. Since then I have dosed another 40, but have reduced the treacle to 11b, and have not lost one sheep. Some of the ewes dosed have looked hopeless cases, and yet they have all recovered and can be moved from paddock to paddock without trouble. The disease has always been looked upon as incurable, and the loss to Canterbury each year must reach thousands of pounds, but from my experience I am euro that Mr. Leslie has found a remedy that is going to do a great deal towards relieving the anxiety of farmers. We often know that our ewes are too fat—that they have been fed too much on turnips, or that we should have given them more green feed, but what no one ever before has told us is how to cure them after they have gone wrong. My object in writing this letter is to let farmers know of this treatment, of Mf. Leslie's. He explained to me when he that it was really only in an experimental .stage yet, and that ho did not like to claim too much from it until it had been really tried out. I think the trial I have given it has proved it a success, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.—"Otago Witness.” -