CONSTIPATION. 



itum ; and then arnica, and wash the parts with arnica water ; and 

 if there be weakness, give china to combat it. 



CONSTIPATION. 



If the first milk, or heastings, has been taken from the calf, and 

 constipation, from that, or from any other cause, succeeds, an aperient 

 should be administered without delay. The sticky black faeces, with 

 which the bowels of the newly-born calf are often loaded, must be 

 got rid of. Castor oil is the safest and the most effectual aperient 

 for so young an animal. It should be given, mixed up with the yolk 

 of an egg, or in thick gruel, in doses of two or three ounces ; and 

 even at this early age, the carminative which forms so usual and 

 indisj)ensab]e an ingredient in the physic of cattle must not be omitted ; 

 a scruple of ginger should be added to the oil. 



Constipation of another kind may be prevented, but rarely cured. 

 If the weather will permit, and the cow is turned out during the day, 

 and the calf with her, the young one may suck as often and as mucn 

 as it pleases — the exercise which it takes with its mother, and the 

 small quantity of green meat which it soon begins to crop, will keep 

 it healthy ; but if it be under shelter with its dam, and lies quiet and 

 sleepy the greater part of the day, some restraint must be put upon 

 it. It must be tied in a corner of the hovel, and not permitted to 

 suck more than three times during tlie day, otherwise it will take 

 more milk than its weak digestive powers will be able to dispose of, 

 and which will coagulate, and form a hardened mass, and fill the 

 stomach and destroy the animal. The quantity of this hardened curd 

 which has someildies been taken from the fourth stomach almost 

 exceeds belief. This is particularly the case when a foster-mother, 

 that probably had calved several weeks before, is given to the little 

 one, or the calf has too early been fed with the common milk of the 

 dairy. The only chance of success in this disease hes in the frequent 

 administration (by means of the stomach-pump, or the drink poured 

 gently down from a small horn) of plenty of warm water, two ounces 

 of Epsom salt being dissolved in the quantity used at each adminis- 

 tration. 



At a later period, the calf is sometimes suffered to feed too plenti- 

 fully on hay, before the manyplus has acquired sufficient power to 

 grind down the fibrous portions of it. This will be indicated by dull- 

 ness, fever, enlargement of the belly, and the cessation of rumination, 

 but no expression of extreme pain. The course pursued must be the 

 same. The manyplus must be emptied, either by washing it out, by 

 the frequent passage of warm water through it, or by stimulating it 

 to greater action, through the means of the sympathetic influence of 

 a purgative on the fourth stomach and the intestinal canal. 



A tendency to costiveness in a calf should be obviated as speedily 

 as possible — it is inconsistent with the natural and profitable thriving 



