284 FARM ANIMALS 



which burrows into the walls of the intestines and 

 causes nodules, giving rise to the name nodular 

 disease for this trouble. This disease is more 

 serious in the South than in the North, but occasion- 

 ally occurs as far north as New York. No medic- 

 inal treatment is of value in ridding sheep of this 

 disease. The whole trouble must, therefore, be 

 controlled by preventive measures. Lambs may 

 be kept on bare lots where there is no grass for 

 them to eat. They may then be fed green crops in 

 racks, taking care to remove all of the material that 

 is left after each feeding. There is little likelihood 

 of the lambs becoming infested under such circum- 

 stances, even if the intestines of the ewes are badly 

 attacked by this parasite. The bare lot method 

 has been tested with considerable success in Louis- 

 iana and has the practical value that ewes which 

 are infested may thus be kept for breeding pur- 

 poses without danger of transmitting the parasites to 

 the lambs. This is of course, an important matter 

 since if it were not possible it would be necessary 

 to get rid of all the infested ewes or, at least, they 

 could not be utilized for breeding purposes. 



The gid worm has not been definitely known to 

 occur in the United States until within the past 

 few years. A few cases have been found in Mon- 

 tana and it may be possible that the disease is more 

 widely spread than is thought. This disease is a 

 serious one in sheep in Europe and is due to an 

 immature form of a tape worm which lives in dogs. 

 The disease is thus transmitted from dogs to sheep 

 and this furnishes another reason for keeping close 

 watch of all dogs about the sheep pasture. The 

 immature tape worm when taken into the stomach 

 of the sheep penetrates through the tissue to the 

 surface of the brain, where it develops in a sac 



