2oG 



SHEEP— DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 



in the liver, which has been of a red- 

 brown color, and double its natural size, 

 and is broken to pieces with the slightest 

 force. 



If it is taken in time, this is not a dis- 

 ease difficult to treat. On the first de- 

 cided yellowness being observed, the ani- 

 mal should be removed to a bare field, 

 and should have the purging Drink (See 

 ,No. 66, Domestic Animals, Medicines 

 for,); half doses of it should also be re- 

 peated for several successive mornings, so 

 that the bowels may be kept in a relaxed 

 state. Mercury will not be wanted. Cal- 

 omel is rarely a safe medicine, and is a 

 very uncertain one for sheep. A little 

 starvation and plenty of purgative medi- 

 cine will be all that is required. Should 

 the animal appear to be considerably 

 weakened, General Tonic Drink, (See No. 

 72, Domestic Animals, Medicines 

 for,) will be used. 



SHEEP, Cold, and Discharge from the 

 Nose, etc., in.— Here again, from the cru- 

 el and impolitic abandonment of the 

 sheep, hundreds of them are tost during 

 the winter. When they are drenched to 

 the skin by continual rams, or half smoth- 

 ered with snow, and have not even a 

 hedge a yard high to break the biting 

 blast, can it be wondered that cold and 

 cough should be frequent in the flock] 

 and that it should be severe and unman- 

 ageable, and even occasionally run on co 

 inflammation of the lungs, and consump- 

 tion and death? We are not an advocate 

 of close housing, or too much nursing. Wo 

 am aware that we may thus render the 

 sheep unnaturally tender and moie ex- 

 posed to catarrh and all its consequences* 

 but we would tell the farmer, that the 

 fleece of the sheep, however thick, is an 

 insufficient protection in cold and wet 

 weather, and an open and bleak situation. 



The symptoms of catarrh are heavi- 

 ness, watery eyes, running from the nose. 

 The discharge is thick, and clings about 

 the nostril, and obstructs it, and the sheep 

 is compelled to suspend its grazing al- 

 most every minute, and with violent ef- 

 forts blow away the obstruction. Cough 

 frequently accompanies this discharge; 

 and if there is much fever, it will be 

 shown by loss of appetite and rapid 

 weakness. 



There is a discharge from the nostrils 

 which sometimes attacks the whole flock, 



and if it is not attended by wasting u 

 flesh or loss of appetite, the farmer does 

 not regard it; for he knows from experi- 

 ence, that, in spite of all he can do, it will 

 probably last through the winter, and dis- 

 appear as the spring advances. When, 

 however, he perceives this nasal gleet, he 

 should keep a sharp look-out over his 

 flock, and if there is one that stays be- 

 hind, or will not eat, he should catch 

 him, and remove him to a warmer situa- 

 tion, and bleed him, and give him the lax- 

 ative and fever drinks, and nurse him with 

 mashes and hay. If a seeond or a third 

 sheep should fail in the same manner, he 

 must indeed look about him; there is 

 danger to all, for the inflammation has 

 spread itself from the throat down the 

 windpipe to the air-passages of the lungs, 

 and a very dangerous disease, called 

 bronchitis, is produced. He must move 

 the whole flock to a more sheltered situa- 

 tion. He must move them to a pasture 

 of somewhat different character. He 

 must take them from their turnips or their 

 hay, and give them what other food his 

 farm will afford. He should, if he will 

 take the trouble to do so (and he would 

 be amply repaid for that trouble), bleed 

 them all round, and physic them all. 

 This is strange doctrine to the farmer, 

 who is accustomed to look on and let 

 things take their course. It is, however, 

 good advice, and he will find it so, if he 

 w..l but follow it. Yet let him not, in 

 iiis determination to rouse himself and do 

 something, listen too much to the sug- 

 gestions of the shepherd or the farrier. 

 Let him not give any of those abomina- 

 ble cordial drinks, which have destroyed 

 thousands of sheep. Warmth, housing at 

 night, littering with clean straw, and 

 warm gruel if the animal will not eat or 

 drink, are not only allowable, but useful : 

 nay,, we would allow a little ginger or a lit- 

 tle ale with the medicine ; but not those 

 compounds of all manner of hot and in- 

 jurious spices, which would kindle a fire 

 in the veins of the animal, if it were not 

 blazing there before. 



Experienced sheep-breeders recommend 

 a dose of tar, to be repeated for foul 

 noses, but lest that be neglected, it is re- 

 commended as a good precaution, under 

 all circumstances, to have some small sap- 

 lings or small trees bored with a large au- 

 ger at proper distances, and the holes to 



