DISEASES OF STOCK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19442, 30 October 1925, Page 9

DISEASES OF STOCK

DYSPEPSIA IN CALVES. CAUSES AND REMEDIES. Paradoxical as it may seem, many “overfed” calves die of starvation. Underfeeding on good food is safest for health and best for growth. Milk is an excellent medium for all bacteria to grow upon; it must, therefore, bu closely protected from the time it is drawn until fed. Factory milk is to be avoided. Heavy feeding on skim milk results in dilation of the stomach wall, producing atomy and consequent restriction of the gastric and other juices which aid its digestion. Cold' milk lowers the body temperature, as seen by the tremors and dazed appearance. On no account feed it below lOOdeg. Fahr.; 101-102dcg. is the ideal. In Nature animals suck on an average 12 to 15 times in the course of 24 hours, the milk being at blood heat and taken in small amounts. An excess of natural milk will produce bad results, too. When the milk reaches the stomach it is converted by acids into small pellets of curd capable of easy digestion. When bulk feeding, and notably when the feed is cold and low in quality, the curd forms into a solid block, which is not digested before the next drink—probably forced down, because “the little fool” won’t drink, and retrogressive changes take place in the central and densest part of the curd block, forming a focus of bacterial growth, which in turn acts upon the gastric intestinal mucosae, setting up acute indigestion, colic, gastritis, diarrhoea, or dysentery.

' The usual treatment is an astrigent 1 drench or gruel, which makes matters i worse. Aperient doses are required to | evacuate the effete material in the all- | mentary canal and medicinal paraflin, or salad oil, arc both soothing and antiI septic. Such a laxative may “brighten I up” a subject for a few days, and then ■ the case is as bad as ever. This is ■I duo largely to the activity of the bacI'teria inhabiting the digestive tract. In i addition to the aperients, loz. to 2oz. ,at a time, such antizymotics as the ' following are called for: formalin in 15|oz. (1| cups) boiled rainwater, giving 1 teaspoon of this every four hours in a small cup of barley water; or 20 grains of boracic acid, 2 drams each, baking soda and carbolic crystals; ! 1 dram glycerine, 1 pint boiling rain- ! water. Dose, 1 dessertspoon in 1 cup I well boiled, thin linseed gruel, three i times daily. The return to feeding I must be gradual using poor milk, lime ■ water, and cod liver oil, 1 pint, half I pint, loz. respectively four times daily. These cases should always be isolated in case of local causes not operating, but unknown disease.