SHEEP— CARE AND MANAGEMENT. 



207 



be kept supplied with common salt. Let 

 the edges of these holes be smeared with 

 tar, and thus the sheep in the act of get- 

 ting the salt will tar his own nose. There 

 can be no doubt that this would be a 

 good and wholesome practice as an item 

 of general management. Few farmers at- 

 tend as they ought to do, to having their 

 stock regularly and plentifully salted, and 

 there is known to be something in tar and 

 in resinous plants, as pine and cedar, par- 

 ticularly healthy for sheep. 



SHEEP, Influenza in. — Sometimes a 

 catarrh assumes an epidemic form, and 

 appears as the influenza. This disease 

 may be distinguished from a cold, or 

 from bronchitis, by the discharge from 

 the nostrils being more profuse and the 

 eyes nearly closed, great uneasiness of 

 the head, and a sudden prostration of 

 strength. Sometimes the animal will run 

 round in a circle, and a rattling will be 

 heard in the windpipe ; the symptoms will 

 be soon followed by death. 



Bleeding should in general be abstain- 

 ed from in this disease, but half an ounce 

 of Epsom salts, with one drachm of gen- 

 tian, should be given dissolved in gruel ; 

 but if the sheep purged before, instead of 

 the above the strengthening drink (see 

 No. 70, Domestic Animals, Medicines 

 for) should be given, and be assisted by 

 good nursing and care. 



SHEEP, Bot in the.— This disease is 

 the very pest of the sheep, and destroys 

 more of them than all the other maladies 

 put together. There are few winters in 

 which it may not be safely said that 

 many hundred thousands perish by it. 

 The cause seems to be better understood 

 than it used to be, and on many a pasture 

 that had formerly obtained a fatal celeb- 

 rity for rotting sheep, they may now feed 

 securely ; yet almost as many sheep die 

 of the rot as there ever did. 



The symptoms of the rot in the early 

 •stage are exceedingly obscure. There is 

 little to indicate the existence of the 

 disease, even to the most accurate ob- 

 server. This is one cause of the mischief 

 that is done ; for it prevents the malady 

 from being attacked when only it could 

 be conquered. The earliest symptom is 

 one that is common to a great many 

 other diseases, and from which no certain 

 conclusion can be drawn, except that the 

 animal is ill, and labors under fever. The 



sheep is dull, he lags behind in his 

 journey to and from the fold, and he does 

 not feed quite so well ; but these are as 

 much early symptoms of the staggers as 

 of the rot. 



This, however, goes on for some time, 

 and then a palish yellow hue steals over 

 the skin, easy enough to be seen when the 

 wool is parted, and most evident in the 

 eyelids, and that which is generally called 

 the white of the eyes. The lips and 

 mouth are soon tinged, but not to so 

 great a degree. The sheep does not 

 otherwise appear to be ill. If he does 

 not eat much, he does not lose flesh ; on 

 the contrary, he seems to gain condition, 

 and that for several weeks. 



This thriving period soon passes over, 

 and the sheep begin to waste much more 

 rapidly than they had acquired condition. 

 First, there is a perceptible alteration in 

 the countenance — a depressed, unhealthy 

 appearance, accompanied by increased 

 yellowness. The tongue especially be- 

 comes pale and livid. The animal is 

 feverish ; the heat of the mouth, and the 

 panting, and heaving of the flanks, and 

 general dullness, sufficiently indicate this. 

 Some degree of cough comes on ; some 

 discharge from the nose; or the breath 

 begins to be exceedingly offensive. The 

 sheep is sometimes costive ; at other times 

 it purges with a violence which nothing 

 can arrest, and the matter discharged is 

 unusually offensive, and often streaked 

 with blood. And now the soft mellow 

 feel of the sheep in condition is no longer 

 found, but there is an unhealthy flabbi- 

 ness ; even where there is but little left 

 between the skin and the bone, there is a 

 flabby — a kind of pitty feeling ; the parts 

 give way, but they have lost their elas- 

 ticity, and they do not plump up again ; 

 there is also a crackling sound when the 

 loins or back are pressed upon. The 

 fanner knows what this is, and what he 

 is to expect, both in the sheep and the 

 ox; very few of them recover after this 

 crackling has once been heard 



At an uncertain period of the disease 

 the sheep usually become what the 

 graziers call chockered, that is, a consider- 

 able swelling appears under the chin. If 

 this is punctured, sometimes a watery 

 fluid escapes, and sometimes matter; and 

 occasionally the swelling bursts, and aft 

 ulcer, very difficult to heal, follows. 



