204 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



reared with no further trouble than seeing that the 

 herd does not take too much milk from the mothers, 

 and that the calves never by any chance get to the 

 mothers in the veldt, thus getting a sudden bellyful of 

 milk, which is often the cause of scour and death. If 

 kept too much in the hock — especially if it is small, and 

 has been long in use — the calves get lousy, lick them- 

 selves, swallow a lot of hair, which sets up violent indi- 

 gestion, and from which many succumb. The louse can 

 be cured by washings of tobacco-water, or other vermi- 

 fuges ; but the preventative should be sought in letting 

 the calves run day and night, and having a new and 

 clean calf-hock. Where practicable, there is nothing 

 like having the cattle kraal in the fence of an enclosure ; 

 so that the cows go out one side of the fence, and the 

 calves the other. By this means, excepting on the coast 

 lands, nearly all will be reared. But on the coast lands, 

 in spite of every care, probably not 10 per cent, of 

 the calves are reared. The only successful way there 

 seems to be is, never to let them out to graze until they 

 are twelve months old. 



In Natal, red water is very fatal ; but this disease is 

 not known in the Cape Colony, where the three main 

 diseases are lung-sickness (pleuro-pneumonia), gall- 

 sickness, and spon-sickness (quarter evil). Lung-sick- 

 ness is the great bugbear with cattle, as from its terribly 



