DEPRAVED APPETITE IN CALVES AND LAMBS. 161 



milk poor in fat and in mineral constituents. In a few rare cases it is 

 impossible to discover what causes the young animals to devour these 

 foreign materials. Even fully-grown sheep, when shut up together in 

 winter, acquire the habit of chewing each other's wool, sometimes to 

 the extent of virtually depilating their fellows and accumulating wool 

 balls in their stomachs. 



Symptoms. Calves have a tendency to lick themselves or their 

 neighbours, and thus little by little collect a varying quantity of hair 

 which they swallow. When this habit of licking is little marked the 

 quantity of hair ingested may not be dangerous ; but in the contrary 

 case the hair (which cannot be digested) accumulates and is permanently 

 retained in the abomasum. It soon becomes converted into masses, 

 cemented together with mucus, and forms round balls, to which the name 

 of oegagrophiles has been given. If these oegagrophiles, or hair balls, are 

 of small size, they prove of trifling importance ; but too frequently they 

 attain considerable dimensions and obstruct the pylorus or the intestine. 

 The young calves then refuse all nourishment, and die in twenty-four to 

 forty-eight hours in a state of complete exhaustion or after a series of 

 epileptiform attacks. 



In lambs the complications due to depraved appetite develop in a 

 similar way, but the wool swallowed is obtained from the mothers. The 

 lambs first suck the locks of wool, then tear them off and swallow them. 

 So long as these peculiarities of appetite are little marked no bad results 

 follow ; but if the shepherd is careless, and fails to note the condition of 

 his young flock sufficiently early, accidents occur. 



The wool is not so easily converted into balls as is hair, but it soon 

 accumulates in the pyloric region or in the intestine, and forms obstruct- 

 ing masses. The little patients lose appetite and lie down in- corners, 

 where they are found dead after twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The 

 masses of wool or of hair are rarely passed with the excrement ; more . 

 frequently they are vomited, but this again is exceptional ; usually they 

 become arrested at the entrance to the pylorus. The lambs show colic, 

 tympanites of the abomasum, and attempts at vomiting, though unfor- 

 tunately these are often overlooked. The quantity of wool found in the 

 abomasum and intestine on post-mortem examination may be consider- 

 able, in relation to the size of the digestive compartments. Death results 

 from intestinal obstruction, exactly as in the case of calves. 



These aberrations of appetite in lambs have been considered as due 

 to the want of sufficient mineral salts in the mother's milk ; and it has 

 been stated that the lambs practise this habit because of the laxative 

 result of the fat contained in the w^ool swallowed. The explanation seems 

 very logical, though it is by no means perfectly proved. It is certain that 

 this habit becomes particularly common after years in which forage has 



D.C. M 



