PULPY KIDNEY IN THE YOUNG LAMBS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 26 (Supplement)

PULPY KIDNEY IN THE YOUNG LAMBS

A FATAL COMPLAINT ITS SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT A short time ago. Mr Dudley A. GiU, M.R.C.V.S., the assistant oflicer-in-charge of the Wallaceville Veterinary Laboratory, gave a very interesting and instructive address from 2Y’A on that fatal complaint, which affects the best lambs of the flock, known as pulpy kidney, or renal congestion. Mr Gill started off by saying that this trouble, affected lambs that were about three weeks old and caused death so rapidly that it was seldom that a lamb was seen while it was ill. All the owner generally noticed was the dead lamb lying in the paddock. Twin lambs were not immune from this condition, particularly in some districts* but in the North Island it was nearly always the single lamb in great condition and growing rapidly that was the victim. The losses occurred, moreover, only on rich country w’herc the ewes “did” their lambs very well. The disease was not found on hill country, except on low hills where the pastures had been pushed on with top-dressing. When a lamb had died of this disease, and its was opened, the kidneys were usually found to be broken down. Instead of being firm th e investigator would find that the outer portion was reduced to a soft, jelly-like consistency, from which condition the disease derived one of its names. Another point often noticed in those cases was that the sac, in which the heart lay, contained quite a large quantity of yellowish fluid, sometimes so much being present that the sac was tightly distended with it. Cause of the Trouble ‘•' To-night,’’ said Mr Gill* “I want to direct your attention, more particularly, to the means at your disposal for preventing these losses, but, before passing on to that, it will be useful to say a little' about the cause of the disease, as far as we know it at present. You will then be in a better position to understand the principles of the preventive measures that can bo used.

“As I have already said, it is the very advanced lamb of three or four weeks old, that is most liable to attack, and, while lambs up to about six weeks and ones as young as 10 days occasionally die from it, this is quite exceptional “The age, theq. at which they are attacked- corresponds to the time at which they start grazing, and, as 1 have said, the losses usually occur on rich pastures, generally composed of ryegrass, white clover, suckling clover, etc? Now, these extra-forward lambs have had an abundance of milk from their dams since birth, and, when they start grazing the. rich pasture as well, a verv great strain is thrown on their digestive organs, because, whereas it has been called upon to deal with milk only, it now has to tackle herbage as well, and that means far more than just so much extra food. It is extra food of an entirely different character from the sort 1h P stomach and intestines have hitherto been accustoniel to. and the lambs have to alter their methods to meet the new situation that the changed diet has brought about. I think you will realise from this how it is that a lamb whose digestive organs have been fully occupied from birth with large quantities of milk sometimes makes a mess of it when it trios to take ryegrass, clover, etc., as well. The Digestive Processes. “All food substances are very complicated chemical mixtures, and, when one speaks of a food being digested, one means that it is broken down into a number of much simpler compounds which the body can absorb from the intestine and use for building up its tissues and supplying it with energy. But when this breaking down process is not carried out properly, substance* are apt to result—largely from the ac tivities of the microbes which are always present in th e intestine —which, instead of being useful to the body, are actually poisonous to it, and this seems to be what happens to the lambs which die so suddenly. These poisonous substances arc continually being

formed in any animal, but only in small quantities, and the liver, in these circumstances, is able to neutralise them before they can accumulate sufli ciently to do any harm. In these lambs owing to the fact that, through improper digestion, they are being forme 1 1 in larger quantities than usual and also because the liver is already fully occupied, they accumulated, till, if steps are not taken to check the lamb, they poison it and cause very rapid “1 hope that what I have said has been quite clear to you, because it is on that, especially in the latter part, that preventive measures are based. These all aim at helping the lamb to throw off those poisonous substances until, through its becoming accustomed to digesting the milk and pasture combinat.on, the danger period is over. Marking and Docking. “The general experience here in the North Island is that ‘marking’ the lambs —that is, docking and castrating them —is an effective preventive measure- No doubt it acts well here, because the tendency to the disease is not so great as it is in some other parts ol the Dominion, and the exercise involved in yarding them up, together with the fact that they miss a feed or two, and lose some blood, is enough to starve off the disease. “To be most effective, marking must be done at the proper time, that is to say, when the lambs arc approaching three weeks of age. It should be quite obvious to anyone accustomed to lambs that, if marking is done much earlier than that, the check it gives them has been entirely overcome by the time they reach the dangerous age, and therefore it is not likely to prevent the trouble. It is best to draft the ewes into mobs as they lamb and then mark each mob as they reach the right age. If this cannot be done from lack of paddock room, then the younger lambs should be missed at the general marking and dealt with after, when they have reached the required age. “In Central Otago, where there is a great tendency to this condition, it has been found that marking is not of the same use as it is in the North Island, and, last year, the Department of Agriculture’s veterinary service organised some experiments in that district to try out various other preventive measures. Research work is going on there, and is still continuing at the Wallaceville Veterinary Laboratory into the more technical aspect of the disease, and the experiments referred to were run in conjunction with it. Ot the different methods tried I will only mention those which gave good results, and do this because, after the extraordinary winter we have had, the ewes are coming in in excellent and it is likely that there will be a good deal more, of this trouble among the lambs this season than is usually the case. Moreover, now is the time when farmers who are liable to get, these losses should be organising their flocks to meet it and preparing to put preventive measures into practice. Preventive Measures “We found three methods which could be used with very good results. They all have one thing in common, that is, to put them into effect properly, the flock must be drafted into mobs at lambing, so that lambs in any given mob are approximately the same age. It stands to reason that one can not handle sheep as they need to be handled to prevent this disease if lambs three weeks old down to ones newly born and ewes still to come in arc all mixed up together. “One method of prevention is by daily exercising the lambs from the tim e they arc about ten days old.

“The following example will show you the effect of exercise;— “Farm 1. —Exercise mobs (800 to 1000 lambs), deaths per cent.; unexercised (100 lambs), deaths 9 per cent. “Farm 2. —Exercised mobs, deaths 3 per cent; unexercised, deaths 6 per cent. 1 “Farm 3.—Exercised mobs, deaths 4 per cent.; unexercised, deaths 10 per cent. ‘ The way in which the exercising was done was neither consistent nor particularly thorough, but is the best that can usually be managed at such a busy time of the year. It consisted ol driving the sheep from end to end of the paddock with quiet dogs for a varying time each day. Some days a good half-hour might be devoted to a particular mob, whereas next day only enough time might be available to drive them once up the paddock. In spite of this, however, the cases quoted are fair examples, and they certainly show a considerable saving in the losses. The object in exercising the lambs lies in the fact that the bowels are stimulated to act more effectively, and thus the body is helped to discard its waste products more expeditiously. “The second effective method tried was to place the mob on ploughed ground very early iu the morning, as soon as it is light, and leave them there for three or four hours. This arts in much the same way as the exercise. The ewes go on the ploughed ground hungry after their night’s sleep and consequently wander ab'.ut looking for food, taking their lambs with them. I can give you no definite figures on the results of this method, for the experiment was not under my supervision. but I know the results were extremely good. “The third and last preventive measure that gave good results is one that wo’ked perhaps better than exercising and, moreover, is the most practicable and easy to work. It consists in yarding i’j> the mob in a corner of the paddock that has been fenced in with a few standards and wire netting. They are left in this yard for a period of 24 hours, once a week, from the time the lambs are 10 days old. Flushing the Ewes. “Apart from these preventive measures that I have mentioned, the practice of flushing the ewes before they lamb —that is to say, giving them a run on to succulent green feed, such as green oats,, for a time —is of benefit in helping to avoid these losses. In fact, such a period of flushing should be regarded as a normal and necessary practice in sheep husbandry. “I may as well mention that, in addition to technical research work on this lamb disease being continued, the department’s veterinary staff in Otago, Southland, and Canterbury is experimenting this coming season with a variety of mineral salt-licks to try and counteract the tendency to this disease which, it is thought, may possibly have some connection with the balance between the various minerals required by the growing Jamb at that particular stage in its life.” At the last annual conference of the New Zealand Veterinary Association in Wellington, Mr Gill put forward a new theory regarding this disease which was well received. He rtated that while still regarding the primary cause as nutritional, he had formed the opinion that certain bacteria normally present in the large intestine might be responsible for setting up the toxic condition which caused death. He had found these bacteria present in the small intestine where they would be in 1a good position to exert adverse chemical changes on the passing food, and the products resulting . from those changes would be far more easily ab-

sorbed than from the large intestine. Assuming that such products were of a particular kind, which was very probable, tl n all the post-mortem lesions usually found and all such antc-mor-tem symptoms as were sometimes observedj could be readily accounted for.