324 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



test, finding four or five head afflicted, you can save the balance of the 

 herd. If the state is to pay for these condemned cattle you save the state 

 from paying for the balance of your cattle which are liable to become af- 

 fected later. 



This test is such a simple, easy test to apply that it would seem that 

 most anyone would be able to apply it with perfect results, and when it 

 is applied as it should be the results are absolutely reliable. In getting 

 the herd ready to test it is wise to water them about noon and house 

 them. Permit them to stand about three hours. At 3 o'clock you can take 

 the temperature. The normal temperature varies from 96 to 103 de- 

 grees. No animal with a temperature higher than 103 should have tub- 

 erculin injected. You take three temperatures, the first being taken at 3 

 o'clock, then one at 5 and another at 7. After the 7 o'clock temperature 

 you inject tuberculin by the use of the syringe, using 2 c. c. of tuberculin 

 for the ordinary 1,000-pound cow. This syringe will hold doses. After 

 the tuberculin is injected the herd should be watered, and then they should 

 not be watered again until 2 o'clock the following day unless they can 

 drink whenever they want to. The following morning at 6 o'clock you 

 take temperatures, then again at 8, 10, 12 and 2, at which time the test is 

 finished. After the test is finished, if there is an abnormal rising of tem- 

 perature over the temperatures of the first day your herd should be di- 

 vided into three classes — healthy, suspicious and condemned. A cow 

 whose temperature raised over 103 or 104 may be considered suspicious. 

 Over 104, up to 107.2 are usually reactors and tuberculous. 



After the test is finished you should take a history of all the animals 

 whose temperatures exceed 104. Kill these animals and you will find 

 they are tuberculous. On the other hand if you kill the animals showing 

 temperatures between 103 and 104 you are liable to kill animals that are 

 not tuberculous. Instead of killing the suspicious animals turn them back 

 into the herd and retest them. This can be done in six days. 



Tuberculin should not be injected unless animals are in a normal con- 

 dition. For instance it should not be injected into a cow that has 

 recently aborted or recently been dehorned. If you do you are liable to 

 get a reaction when the animal is not afflicted with tuberculosis. 



If the stock raisers of the United States were not so frightened over 

 tuberculosis it would be a good thing. I find stock men scared over tub- 

 erculosis. They worry day and night for months over their herds, think- 

 ing they were rotten with tuberculosis, but when the test was applied 

 tney found them perfectly free. They think when a herd is coughing 

 that they were afflicted with tuberculosis. Cattle can have a cough pass 

 througn the entire herd without being afflicted with tuberculosis. 



An animal may be in the last stages of tuberculosis and still not re- 

 act. This gives those who do not believe an opportunity of not believing, 

 but an animal that is so far afflicted as not to react is in such a condition 

 that the ordinary person would readily know from their appearance that 

 it was not a fit subject to be in the herd. You are amply protected in 

 that way. 



You can not start tuberculosis in a herd unless you introduce the 

 germ. When you find tuberculosis in a herd take out the reactors. Test 



