298 THE VETERINARY SCIENCE. 



NAIL RUN IN THE FOOT. 



This generally occurs where cattle are running around old 

 buildings where boards with nails in them are lying about. 



Symptoms. — There is severe lameness which comes on all of a 

 sudden ; the animal appears to be in great pain and can scarcely 

 touch its foot to the ground. 



Treatment. — Pull the nail out, pare out around the hole made 

 by the nail and poultice with hot linseed meal ; keep the animal 

 quiet until the soreness is all out ; change the poultices twice 

 a day. If it should fester then pare down around the hole until 

 the matter comes out and then poultice well to draw it all out ; 

 keep the animal quiet until the hole heals up. After you quit 

 poulticing stuff the hole with tar and cotton batting to keep the 

 dirt from working up into it. 



DEHORNING. 



This is an operation which is carried on to a great extent in 

 Canada and other countries, and is gaining the favor of stock 

 owners rapidly. It is a very simple, although a painful operation 

 while it lasts, and is, as a general thing, attended with ver}- good 

 results. While this is a painful operation so are all other opera- 

 tions, such as castration and docking, but as long as it is done 

 with a view to benefitting the lives of the cattle themselves, and 

 also their owner, it is not considered inhuman. It is best not to 

 perform this operation on cattle under one year old for the horns 

 will often grow again, and before that time they never do much 

 harm. The best time to dehorn is in the spring, during the 

 months of March and April, so that the horns will be well healed 

 up before the flies come to bother them, or in the fall of the year, 

 just after there has been frost enough to kill the flies. The opera- 

 tion is a simple one, and is performed in this way : Build a 

 stanchion, similar to the old way of tying cattle, in a soFid door- 

 way, or any other such place where you can run the cattle into 

 it, one at a time. Have the stanchion built good and strong, also 

 have the sticks in it good and tight together, just large enough 

 for the animal's neck to fit in when it is closed ; have a narrow 

 stall, built out of good strong plank, at the side of the stanchion 

 where you can run the cattle in, this will keep them from swinging 

 the body around while you are dehorning them. When you have 

 the animal fast in the stanchion put a rope halter over its head, and 

 have the head and neck well pulled forward by means of a double 



