728 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [11 Dec, 1916. 



MORTALITY OF DAIRY COWS IN THE HAMILTON 



DISTRICT. 



By E. W. Murphy, Dairy Supervisor. 



Settlers on the Closer Settlements Blocks at Strathkellar, near 

 Hamilton, have experienced keen disappointment, and incurred heavy 

 losses, through the deaths of large numbers of milking cows. The 

 estate was subdivided ten years ago, and preference was given to ex- 

 perienced dairymen, as the land was thought to be very suitable for 

 dairy farming, but when I came to inspect the district in March, 1916, 

 I found that the industry was at a very low ebb, and many of the 

 farmers so disheartened as to have given up milking cows altogether. 



On some of the blocks, cripples, paralysis, and rickets have been a 

 continuous source of loss, and on other farms it was in droughty 

 seasons only that there was any particular trouble. Many of the 

 farmers have a very confused idea of the underlying causes of the evils, 

 and I have not met any stock-owner, yet who had a grasp of the whole 

 of the facts. A clear understanding of the nature of the complaints, and 

 of the predisposing causes, is of great importance, so that we can work 

 on right lines towards overcoming them. I became acquainted with 

 several drenches that gave good results. Mr. Chadderton, the Jersey 

 breeder, informs me that since he has depended upon a simple drench 

 (that was recommended by some cattlemen), he has not lost any, though 

 the cows were affected in the same way as formerly, when they used 

 to die. Mr. Chadderton uses one cup of kerosene with one cup of water 

 and one tablespoonful of baking soda. I listened to the descriptions 

 of the manner of the onset of the complaints, and came to clearly see 

 that there was some other factor besides malnutrition, and eventually 

 concluded that some form of infection or poisoning must be operating. 

 Having formed such opinion, I looked up authorities on the question 

 of forage poisoning, and found that Dr. S. S. Cameron gave an address 

 on " Cripples " to the Chamber of Agriculture Convention in 1906, and 

 inter alia he said, " the trouble is widespread, and I have frequently 

 found that the nasal 'mucous membranes were engorged with blood," 

 and he suggested that the cause was an infection through the nose, of 

 Mycotic Poisoning. 



Professor L. H. Pammel, Ph.D., of Towa State College, in his 

 Manual of Poison Plants, published in 1910, describes the symptoms 

 of Forage Poisoning, and such description agrees completely with the 

 reports of many of the cases occurring in this district. Among other 

 names, it is called Epizootic Cerebro Spinal Meningitis, or known 

 locally as " Grass Staggers,'' "Choking Distemper," &c., and he gives 

 the symptoms as follows : — 



"Weak, staggering gait, and the pharynx is either partially or com- 

 pletely paralysed. The tongiie may be affected and protrude from the 

 mouth, and saliva falls in strings from the lips. The pulse is variable. 

 The respiration hurried and jerky. In the sub-acute cases the first 



