628 MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP ON ARABLE LAND 



slits are made. This last way of making the incision pos- 

 sesses also the advantage of providing a free vent for the 

 escape of humours which form in the wounds during the 

 process of healing, though on the other hand it reduces the 

 size of the " purse," which is a disadvantage in marketing 

 when the animal is ready for the butcher. The two latter 

 methods are not so liable to produce inflammation, and 

 there is no danger, as in the case of drawing the testicles, 

 of rupture, or bleeding in the region of the kidneys, causing 

 a lamb to pine more frequently than to die immediately 

 after the operation. The third method is the safest, but it 

 takes much more time in execution than the others. It is 

 the most suitable when well-developed lambs or old sheep 

 are castrated. 



Tetanus, Lockjaw, or Trismus, is a spasmodic closure 

 of the lower jaw which occurs in sheep, especially after 

 castration, docking, or shearing. It is produced by the 

 Tetanus bacillus, which is about on the surface of the 

 ground or on dirty instruments, and, finding lodgment in 

 the fresh wounds made during these operations, manufactures 

 a toxin which gets into the blood. The symptoms are : 

 " A spasmodic motion of the head, grinding of the teeth, and 

 fixed jaws, the neck stretched out and head bent back. The 

 stiffness may give way to convulsions followed by renewed 

 stiffness." Preventive treatment involves giving sheep fresh, 

 clean pasture, and avoiding dusty or dirty folds, also disinfecting 

 instruments before, during, and after an operation by im- 

 mersion in Jeyes' fluid I teaspoonful to a pint of water, 

 or, better, 5 per cent, carbolic acid. " Curative treatment is 

 directed to wounds where the organisms can be destroyed 

 by weak solutions of corrosive sublimate ; to the absolute 

 quietness of the patient; to the administration of epsom 

 salts as a purgative ; and smearing the teeth every four 

 hours with extract of belladonna as a sedative." 



A peculiar form of Castration was extensively adopted 

 when it was the practice, before the existence of railway 

 facilities, to travel by road in October mixed droves of "cast" 

 ewes (five years old) and old rams of the Cheviot or the 

 Blackface breed from the Highlands of Scotland to the 

 Southern counties. There the ewes were put to long-wool 

 rams for one or two seasons to breed half-bred or cross 



