136 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



liable to abort from slight causes than a well-fed, vigorous animal that received proper care 

 in every respect. Abortion may also be the result of injudicious feeding in many respects. 

 An able authority on this subject says: 



&quot; A coming-in cow that has overeaten of dry meal, and has impaction of the manifolds, 

 is quite liable to abort, if she survives. A severe case of hoven, also, during the last months 

 of pregnancy, is almost sure to be followed by a miscarriage, on account of the pressure and 

 mechanical disturbance that the womb receives. In fact, the sympathetic connections between 

 this important generative organ and the intestinal track are so intimately blended, that very 

 laxative and irritating food is often followed by serious consequences in the pregnant female. 

 Rye bran and potatoes, when fed in large quantities to a cow, at almost any stage of gestation, 

 often give rise to such a copious diarrhoea, especially if she has plenty of cold water to drink, 

 that the uterine cavity becomes involved, and thus its living contents expelled. 



The condition of forage should never escape the dairyman s or breeder s attention. 

 Much harm has been done in feeding musty hay and fermented meal, as well as the ergotized 

 grains, to pregnant animals. The first is a very deleterious article, and never should be fed 

 to any kind of stock, on account of its great tendency to constipate the bowels, and thus bring 

 on a type of disease not easily controlled. The various kinds of feeding mixtures that have 

 been heat, and are undergoing putrefactive changes, are not only quite worthless, many 

 times, in a nutritive point of view, but absolutely dangerous to be used. A full meal of such 

 a damaged article of food is liable to overcome the action of the gastric juice, and consequently 

 bring on a case of hoven, or tympo-enteritis, which invariably compromises the safety of the 

 unborn progeny. 



The effect of ergot, or spurred rye, upon the muscular fibres of the womb is so powerful 

 in causing contraction of that organ, that physicians have used this peculiar fungus for more 

 than half a century as an article of medicine in obstetric practice. Several species of fungoid 

 parasites, closely allied to this medicinal one, which is botanically known as the Kecale 

 cornutum, are found growing upon the other cereals and the various grasses. These fungi 

 grow much more extensively and luxuriantly upon the moist fields and during the wet sea 

 sons. The quantity of this poisonous substance, therefore, that cattle are liable occasionally to 

 consume, either while at pasture, or in the barn during the winter, will be found to be quite 

 variable in different localities.&quot; 



Abortion is not unfrequently occasioned by pampering the animal with highly stimulat 

 ing food in hot stables; slipping in the stall or on the frozen ground, annoyance from the 

 bull or others of the herd, purging, the drinking of impure water from stagnant ponds, etc.; 

 in fact, the more quiet you can keep breeding cows, and the nearest approach to perfection in 

 the sanitary conditions and general management that can be attained, the less danger will 

 there be of trouble in this respect, and the better it will be for the offspring. 



Symptoms of Abortion. The first symptoms of abortion are generally a loss of 

 appetite; the animal will cease to chew her cud, seem listless and dull, separates herself from 

 the rest of the herd, and is inclined to lie down, with a disinclination to get up; the milk 

 diminishes in quantity, and sometimes dries up. After a time she will grow restless, and 

 there will be a watery discharge from the vagina, followed a little later by discharge of the 

 foetus. If the abortion occurs later in the period of gestation, the animal will sometimes 

 show great distress until the foetus is discharged, and it is often in such cases in a partially 

 decomposed condition, showing that it has been dead for several days. This will be some 

 times followed by the discharge of the after-birth, but it usually becomes decomposed and 

 drops away in fragments, being very offensive in odor. When abortion occurs early in the 

 period of gestation, the symptoms will frequently be very slight. More or less discharge of a 

 bloody mucus character will follow for several days after the loss of the foetus. 



