DIPPING SHEEP TO CURE SCAB. 257 



The above plan represents the arrangements in use among large 

 flocks for doing this necessary work. As it is done every year, and 

 twice in succession, at an interval of fourteen days, which is necessary 

 to destroy the newly hatched vermin from eggs which have escaped 

 the first dipping, the yards and vats should be permanent structures 

 on every sheep farm. First there is the receiving yard, to which a 

 fenced lane is made so that the sheep can be easily driven into it. 

 From this yard a few sheep at a time are driven into the smaller yards 

 A, B, C, D, at the end of which is a sloping stage. At the foot of the 

 stage are two decoy pens made of wire netting, in each of which are 

 two sheep. The sheep seeing these decoys run to them and onto 

 the sloping stage, from which they slip into the dipping vat. This is 

 twenty feet long for a large flock, or smaller for a less number, and is 

 kept filled up to a certain point so that the sheep is entirely covered 

 as it passes through it, the head being held up to keep the liquid 

 from being swallowed. At the end of the vat there is a barred sloping 

 floor, up which the sheep walk to the draining yards before mentioned, 

 from which after a time they are let out. The dipping vat is supplied 

 by two boilers and water reservoirs to regulate the heat and the 

 strength of the liquid; one boiler is kept for water, and the other for 

 steeping the tobacco and sulphur. Some extensive sheep farmers make 

 a practice of dipping the sheep twice a year, once in the fall and again 

 after shearing, the dipping being supposed to improve the growth 

 and quality of the wool. No doubt it has this effect because of the 

 comfort enjoyed by the sheep from the removal of troublesome 

 parasites. 



Lice and fleas are frequently a great pest to young cattle and even 

 horses. The origin of these is no doubt in a great measure due to 

 vermin; rats and mice always swarm with them; swallows often stock 

 a barn with them ; while poultry that are neglected are rarely free 

 from them. Dogs and cats carry fleas which they gather from their 

 prey, and unless carefully freed by washing or by the use of insect 

 powder, will soon stock a house with them. No fowls should be per- 

 mitted about stables, for it has been known that horses have been so 

 infested with vermin from them as to slowly die from the torment 

 inflicted in this manner, which the owners have never suspected, but 

 have attributed to other causes. 



INTERNAL PARASITES BLADDER WORMS OF SHEEP. 



Our farm animals are exceedingly pestered with internal parasites, 

 and many thousands are lost every year by diseases of which the true 

 causes are unsuspected. Sheep, pigs, calves and lambs suffer chiefly, 



