108 THE HOOVE. 



by this or the administration of purgatives, it will bo proper to employ 

 the trochar, and thus give exit to the t^as, and ascertain positively the 

 nature of the contents of the rumen. If they are found to be solid and 

 in considerable quantity, it will be proper to make an opening in the 

 flank five inches long, so as to insert the hand, and empty the stomach 

 mechanically, taking especial care not to let any of the food escape 

 from the wound in the rumen into the abdoi'nen. The wound must 

 afterwards be stitched up, and some blood may be taken and an oily 

 laxative administered, and the food for some days given very 

 sparingly. The operation is, of course, attended with much danger, 

 and should therefore be employed in desperate cases only ; but it has 

 been performed with perfect success. 



Cattle that have been once blown are subject to a repetition of the 

 accident. The chloride of lime should be administered whenever they 

 are turned into fresh and tempting pasture : they should be more 

 carefully watched than others, and a cordial drink, mingled with a 

 portion of physic, given them as soon as they appear to be in the 

 slightest degree blown. 



[A gentleman of Easton, Pennsylvania, once assured us that he had often seen a 

 tarred rope tied in the mouth of cattle or sheep for this affection, and " never knew 

 it fail." To prevent hoven, Lewis Saunders, an eminent cattle breeder of Kentucky, 

 recommends — to "mix thoroughly one bushel of wood ashes, sifted to each bushel 

 of common salt; this mixture to be used as salt for stock on a farm. At all times 

 stock ought to be sufficiently salted; but at the periods most likely to be attacked 

 •with hoove (early in spring or at the time of first frosts in autumn) increase the 

 supply of salt and ashes. The alkali, says Mr. Saunders, destroys, from the ashes, 

 the acidity of the stomach— prevenling the accumulation of gas. 1 have thus used 

 ashes with salt, for stock, for upwards of twenty years, and in all that time have 

 lost but one animal by hoove, and that was supposed to have occurred in conse- 

 quence of having omitted the ashes, in one or two saltings. I prefer salting on the 

 ground, a double handful in a place twenty-five or thirty feet apart. I use the 

 mixture for horse and hog slock, as well as for cattle and sheep."— Grass Hills, Ken- 

 tucky, 1839.— S.] 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



CHOKING. 



Cattle are extremely liable to become choked when feeding on 

 turnips or other roots, and many are in consequence destroyed. A 

 round object, such as a potato, is more likely to occasion sutfocation 

 than a more irregular body, as it produces greater pressure on the 

 W'indpipe, and is embraced more closely by the oesophagus. The 

 appearances attending choking can scarcely be mistaken. The animal 

 evinces great distress, tries to bring up the obstructing body, slavers 

 at the mouth, pokes its nose, and draws -up the neck? After awhile 



