630 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



quantities of cold millc at long intervals are liable to contract this 

 I'orm of indigestion. Calves fed on artificial food, used as a substitute 

 for milk, frequently contract it. Damaged food, sour or rotten milk, 

 milk in dirty cans, skim milk from a dirty creamery skim-milk vat, 

 skim milk hauled warm, exposed to the sun, and fed from unclean 

 buckets, may all cause this disease. 



Symptons. — The calf is depressed; appetite is poor; sometimes there 

 is fever; the extremities are cold. The dung becomes gradually softer 

 and lighter in color until it is cream colored and little thicker than 

 milk. It has a most offensive odor and may contain clumps of curd. 

 Later it contains mucus and gas bubbles. It sticks to the hair of the 

 tail and buttocks, causing the hair to drop off and the skin to become 

 irritated. There may be pain on passing dung and also abdominal or 

 colicky pain. The calf stands about with the back arched and belly 

 contracted. There may be tympanites. Great weakness ensues in 

 severe cases, and without prompt and successful treatment death soon 

 folows. 



Treatment. — Remove the cause. Give appropriate food of best 

 quality in small quantities. Make sure that the cow furnishing the 

 milk is healthy and is properly fed. Clean all milk vessels. Clean 

 and disinfect the stalls. For the diarrhea give two raw eggs, or a cup 

 of strong coffee, or two ounces of blackberry brandy. If the case is 

 severe, give 1 ounce of castor oil with a teaspoonful of creolin and 

 20 grains of subnitrate of bismuth. Repeat the bismuth and creolin 

 with blackberry brandy and flaxseed tea every four hours. Tannopin 

 may be used in dose of 15 or 30 grains. 



ABORTION. OR SLINKING THE CALF. 



By James Law, F. R. C. V. S., 

 Professor of Yeterinary Science, etc., in Cornell University. 



V. S. DEPT. OF AGR'L BULLETIN. 



Technically, abortion is the term used for the expulsion of the off- 

 spring before it can live out of the womb. Its expulsion after it is 

 capable of an independent existence is premature parturition. In the 

 cow this may be after seven and one-half months of pregnancy. Earl 

 Spencer failed to raise any calf born before the two hundred and forty- 

 second day. Dairymen use the term abortion for the expulsion of the 

 product of conception at any time before the completion of the full 

 period of a normal pregnancy, and in this sense is will be employed in 

 this article. 



