CATTLE— CARE AND MANAGEMENT. 



i95 



Diarrhoea will often in the early stage 

 be accompanied not only by inflammation 

 ■of the bowels, but much general fever. 

 This will be known by much panting, 

 heat of the mouth, and uneasiness, the 

 animal lying down and getting up again, 

 rolling, or kicking at its belly. It will 

 then be prudent to bleed. A pint will be 

 the proper quantity to be taken from a 

 calf under a month ; after that an addi- 

 tional ounce may be taken for every 

 month. When, however, the diarrhoea 

 has been long established, and the calf is 

 getting weak and rapidly losing flesh, it 

 would be madness to bleed ; the strength 

 of the animal would be more speedily 

 exhausted, and its death hastened. Chalk, 

 or starch, astringents, and carminatives 

 will then afford the only rational hope of 

 success. After the cure has been com- 

 pleted, much care should be taken re- 

 specting the diet of the animal ; and it 

 will sometimes be useful to give him a 

 lump of chalk and another of salt in his 

 feeding place, to lick them .when he likes. 



CALVES, Costivenesa in. — This disease 

 occasionally attacks young calves a few 

 days after they are born. It is then caused 

 by coagulation of milk in the fourth 

 stomach, which is completely distended 

 by the solid curd, and the passage through 

 it obstructed. There is not often any 

 remedy for this. The most likely method 

 to succeed is to pour in plenty of warm 

 water in which Epsom salts have been 

 dissolved, by means of the stomach- 

 pump so often recommended. The first 

 dose may consist of two ounces of the 

 salts dissolved in two or three quarts of 

 water ; after which ounce-doses may be 

 given every six hours, likewise in the 

 same quantity of water, until the bowels 

 are opened. 



The costiveness of calves is generally 

 produced by bad management. Either 

 the calf is suffered to suck too plentifully, 

 or put to a cow whose milk is too old, or 

 fed with new milk from the dairy pro- 

 miscuously. All these things are injuri- 

 ous, and thousands of young animals 

 have been destroyed by them. 



When costiveness occurs in calves ot 

 two or three months old, it is usually 

 when they have been too suddenly 

 changed from fluid food, as gruel or 

 porridge, to that of a dryer and more 

 •stimulating kind, and consisting princi- 



pally of hay. This is a dangerous com- 

 plaint ; for there is not only obstruction 

 usually in the tnanyplies, or third stomach, 

 which is employed in rubbing down the 

 hard fibrous food, and now becomes 

 overloaded and clogged, but the paunch 

 itself is generally filled with undigested 

 food, and rumination has ceased. 



Here again everything depends on 

 diluting the hardened mass, and opening 

 the bowels. The first dose of medicine 

 should consist of a quarter of a pound of 

 Epsom salts, dissolved in a gallon of 

 warm water. It will not be forgotten 

 that by introducing the pipe a little way, 

 or far down the gullet, the medicine may 

 be thrown at once into the third and 

 fourth stomachs, or into the first. If it is 

 introduced only a little way, and the 

 pump worked gently, the fluid will pass 

 on through the canal at the base of the 

 gullet, which was described in the early 

 part of the work, and enter the third 

 stomach. Flowing through this in con- 

 siderable quantities, it will perhaps dis- 

 solve, and wash out the hardened mass 

 contained between the leaves of the 

 manyplies, while the salts will open the 

 bowels, and by emptying them, solicit the 

 food forward from the gorged stomachs. 



If, after the bowels have been well 

 opened, rumination should not return, it 

 will be prudent to have recourse again to 

 the stomach-pump, the tube of which 

 should now be pushed farther down the 

 gullet until it enters the paunch. Plenty 

 of warm water being now pumped in, 

 and with some force, it will stir up the 

 contents of the paunch, and cause them to 

 be disgorged into the canal leading to the 

 true stomach; or vomiting will be ex- 

 cited, and the greater part of it thus 

 brought away. The stomach will prob- 

 ably act upon the little that remains, 

 rumination will again be established, and 

 the animal will speedily recover. 



There are few things so dangerous to 

 young cattle as being thus sapped or 

 costive. It is the foundation of fever, 

 and of many a serious complaint. As 

 soon as the dung is observed to be hard, 

 a mild dose of physic should be given to 

 every calf. A little attention to this would 

 keep the breeding stock in good order ; 

 and their preservation, and health, and 

 rapid thriving would abundantly repay 

 the little additional trouble and expense. 



