486 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



It is customary to keep the animals closely penned during the period 

 of their fattening at these establishments; in fact they are sometimes 

 restricted to rather uncomfortably narrow quarters. They are divided 

 into lots of 200 to 600, to suit the convenience of the feeder, and each lot 

 is provided with a separate pen in which they remain from the time of 

 their arrival until sufficiently finished to warrant the continuance of their 

 journey to the packing house. la many cases their grain is supplied to 

 them through "self-feeders," by which means a supply is kept constantly 

 before them. Water is also available at all times, and the incentive to active 

 exercise is very slight, even if the pens were large enough to allow unre- 

 stricted movements. Under these conditions an outbreak of foot-rot 

 •quickly assumes serious proportions. While the disease will not of neces- 

 sity spread from one pen to an adjoining one, there are several cases 

 on record where the contagion has been so thoroughly disseminated 

 among individual pens in .which a few infected sheep have been placed 

 that only a small number of its inmates escaped the attack. Inspectors 

 of the Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, occasionally find an affected flock among the arrivals of sheep 

 at the various railway terminals, in which the feet of as many as 75 to 80 

 per cent are diseased to a greater or lesser extent. These bunches of 

 sheep have no doubt been run together in the feeding pens, and the per- 

 centage of diseased animals gives one a very good idea of the infectiveness 

 of foot-rot under these conditions. 



The sheep raiser or feeder who carries on his business upon a modest 

 scale is often just as seriously injured by an outbreak of foot-rot in his 

 flock as is anyone. His sheep run at will over a large portion of his farm, 

 and it soon becomes so thoroughly contaminated by the repeated passage 

 of diseased feet that the owner not only becomes thoroughly discouraged 

 by the repeated failures of his attempts to eradicate the contagion from 

 the premises, but his neighbors begin to look on him with suspicion, and 

 in certain instances have become so aroused as to warn the unfortunate 

 man against entering upon or crossing their holdings until he has suc- 

 ceeded in stamping out the dreaded plague. 



The importer or breeder of choice registered sheep is frequently dam- 

 aged materially by the appearance of this disease among His valuable ani- 

 mals. Foot-rot occasionally develops in sheep soon after importation from 

 European countries in spite of careful examination at the time of pur- 

 chase. In these cases it is probable that the virus had become lodged in 

 some deep fissure under the horny covering of the foot during some previ- 

 ous exposure, and that it had remained latent in its hiding place until 

 favoring conditions stimulated its growth. 



Whatever the manner of propagating the infecting agent, the fact 

 remains that foot-rot frequently manifests itself among flocks of blooded 

 sheep while on shipboard on the way to this country, and conditions 

 here favoring the spread of the infection from sheep to sheep, it is 

 not uncommon for the animals of certain pens to show serious lameness 

 by the time the port of debarkation is reached. Another place in 

 which the owner of improved sheep expose !his best specimens to 

 more or less danger of infection is at the live-stock shows of the country, 

 where his animals are exhibited side by side with sheep from widely 



