24 PET RABBITS, CAVIES, AND MICE. 



battle with it successfully. We have no remedy to offer. 

 But it will perhaps aid in prevention, to point out that 

 constant attention to the food supply and to the con- 

 ditions of housing will go far to secure immunity from 

 attacks of this deadly foe of the rabbit. 



COSTIVENESS, 



Or Constipation, to be more scientifically accurate, is 

 the very opposite of diarrhoea, and arises as much from 

 a shortened supply of green food as diarrhoea does from 

 plenty. It is not to be concluded, however, that consti- 

 pation always springs from lack of aperient food, 

 although it does in the majority of cases. Some people 

 who keeps rabbits professedly as pets are superlatively 

 ignorant of the animals' needs. So ignorant that they 

 often diet their pets in the most ridiculous fashion. 

 They would laugh at you if you told them a rabbit 

 drank water. And to allege that green food is necessary 

 daily would afford them food for ridicule. Such people 

 are more fitting to keep wooden horses than rabbits. 

 You can easily detect the presence of constipation by 

 the lack of excreta. There will be plenty of this daily 

 from a healthy rabbit, and it will be firm and natural. 

 Anyone knows the natural excreta of a rabbit. If the 

 animal is suffering from constipation it will show some 

 of the same mopishness present in the case of diarrhoea, 

 without the weakness, but there is here also a strong 

 tendency to inflammation. If the costiveness can be 

 relieved by a mild and frequent aperient, that will be 

 better than castor oil, which is reactive. Some advise 

 syrup of buckthorn. It is good. Others like strong 

 doses of magnesia, but we have learnt from experience 

 that this and many other of the ills from which rabbits 

 suffer may be prevented by common sense feeding. 

 There are change foods in green meat such as chicory, 

 dandelion, etc., which work wonders in this way. But 

 the crass obstinacy of many rabbit keepers causes them 

 to persist in the unwise policy of closing the stable door 

 when the horse has escaped. 



DISEASES OF THE SKIN 



Arise chiefly from overheated blood and unclean con- 

 ditions. We do not prescribe for these beyond the 



