200 DISEASES OF YOUNG LAMBS. 



when she should be allowed a little hay. While the food is altered 

 the bowels should be well cleansed. There may be something amiss 

 about the ewe, which causes the milk to be thus purgative and un- 

 wholesome. The best purgative for sheep is the following : — 

 RECIPE (No. 2). 

 Purging Drink for Sheep.— Tnke Epsom salts, two ounces ; powdered caraways, a 

 quarter of an ounce; warm thin gruel sulficient to dissolve the salts. 



This being given to the mother will likewise be of service to the 

 lamb, by helping to carry off any acidities or crudities from the sto- 

 mach or bowels. 



In a disease so fatal, and which runs its course so rapidly, no time 

 is to be lost, and therefore astringent medicine should be administer- 

 ed to the lamb as speedily as possible. 



RECIPE (No. 3). 

 Jistringent Drink for Zam&s.— Take compound chalk powder with opium, a drachm ; 

 gentian, a scruple ; essence of peppermint, three drops. Mix with a little thin starch, 

 and give morning and night. 



If the animal should still linger on, and the purging should not be 

 much abated, it is probable that the milk of the mother is most in 

 fault. The lamb should then be taken from her, and fed with cow's 

 milk boiled, to every pint of which a scruple of prepared chalk has 

 been added, the astringent drink being continued as before. 



If the purging abates, the medicine should be immediately sus- 

 pended, or not given so frequently, lest costiveness should follow, a 

 disease which f shall presently describe, and which is also very fatal. 



The lamb with diarrhoea should be docked on the first appearance 

 of the disease, if the operation had not been previously performed, 

 and the hair should be carefully cut away under the tail, otherwise it 

 is liable to become clotted. It will adhere together, and form an 

 obstruction about the anus, so that the faeces cannot be discharged. 

 The least ill consequence of this will be very great soreness about 

 the part; but in many cases the animal will die in consequence of the 

 obstruction, before the existence of it is suspected. 



The colour of the discharge will considerably influence the mode 

 of treatment. If it is of an olive-green colour, the drink should be 

 persevered in; and on every third day half a table-spoonful of castor 

 oil should be administered. If it is of a white colour, it may probably 

 proceed from coagulation of the milk, and should be treated as advised 

 in a previous page. 



If the lamb is two or three months old, the medicine should be 

 correspondingly increased, and he has a better chance: if he is five 

 or six months old, he will only be lost through the negligence of the 

 farmer or attendant. The same means must be pursued ; but another 

 thing must be added, and that of the greatest importance, — a change 

 of pasture from a succulent to a bare and dry one. The removal to a 

 stubble-field is a frequent and very successful practice. 



