.SHEEP. 243 



besides laurel are suspected of poisoning sheep, but very little accurate infor- 

 mation has yet been obtained regarding them. 



DIARRHCEA. 



Common diarrhoea or scours, not attended -with constitutional disease, gener- 

 ally requires no remedies. If protracted, two or three days' confinement to 

 dry feed, or an ounce of prepared chalk given in half a pint of tepid milk, will 

 usually put a stop to it. If the purging is severe, or accompanied by mucus 

 slime, a gentle cathartic of an ounce of Epsom salts or oil should be adminis- 

 tered to a sheep, and half as much to a lamb six months old, and this be fob 

 lowed up by the dose of chalk and milk above recommended once a day foi 

 two or three days. But "sheep's cordial " is a better remedy than the chalk, 

 and may be kept on hand by every farmer. It is composed of the following 

 ingredients : Prepared chalk, one ounce ; powdered catechu, half an ounce ; 

 powdered ginger, two drachms ; and powdered opium, half a drachm. Mix 

 them with half a pint of peppermint water, and give two or three tablcspoonsful 

 morning and night to a grown sheep, and half as much to a lamb. 



DYSENTERY. 



This differs from diarrhoea in various observable particulars. It is attended 

 by fever; the appetite is irregular and generally poor; the evacuations are as 

 thin as or thinner than in diarrhoea, but they are slimy, sticky, and very offensive 

 in smell. As the disease progresses, they become tinged with blood, and the 

 animal rapidly wastes away. It sometimes dies in a few days, and sometimes 

 lingers along for several weeks. This is treated much like severe diarrhoea, 

 only many persons give two cathartics, instead of one, at the beginning. The 

 English practitioners also bleed, if the malady is detected in its very first stage ; 

 but if debility has ensued, it prostrates the system too much. The "sheep's 

 cordial" requires to be given longer, and after a shoi-t period tonics are added — 

 more ginger and from one to two drachms of gentian daily. This last is an 

 admirable tonic. In place of the above remedies, some American fl\rmers give 

 a teaspoonful of laudanum and a tablespoonful of gin or rum, mixed and put in 

 a little diluted fluid. 



COLIC OR STRETCHES. 



This is occasioned by confinement to dry food. During the paroxysms the 

 sheep stretches itself incessantly, and exhibits much pain. A cathartic of one 

 ounce of Epsom salts or castor oil will usually effect a cure. A drachm of 

 ginger and a teaspoonful of the essence of peppermint, put in warm water with 

 the salts, adds to their eificacy. Half of the above dose for lambs. Green feed, 

 even if given only once or twice a week, prevents this malady. 



CATARRH. 



This is common in winter among unsheltered sheep, or those which are win- 

 tered in small, close, unveutilated stables. In its simple fonu it is not dangerous, 

 unless its exciting causes are continued ; but frequent colds, rendered chronic 

 by mismanagement, impair the condition of sheep, and eventually lead to low 

 forms of fever, wasting and death. An epizootic catarrh, like influenza in 

 unusually changeable winters, among human beings, occasionally rages with 

 great violence over extensive regions, jjroducing wide-spread destruction in our 

 American flocks. The best course is to prevent the disease by proper manage 

 ment. Hardy sheep, in good condition, need not, Avith reasonable precaution, 

 be exposed to taking cold, and if any number of them chance to do so, certainly 

 the neglect causing it need not be repeated. For simple cold it is not common 

 to do anything, though some careful farmers administer a tablespoonful of tar, and 



