NODULE DISEASE OF SHEEI 147 



and yet be too weak to eat it, or if able to eat, he may still be 

 starving- becanse the intestinal wall cannot take up the food 

 that may be ready for absorption. 



Diagnosis. — This disease is rather common among farm sheep. 

 There is diarrhea, debility, pallor of mucous membranes, and 

 emaciation. Diagnosis can only be made certain by finding the 

 characteristic nodules in an examination of the dead animal, 

 for sheep infested with some other parasitic diseases show simi- 

 lar symptoms and conditions during life. 



Treatment. — It is probable that but little can be accomplished 

 by medical treatment, because the worms, during a large part 

 of their life history, are walled up in these nodules and beyond 

 the reach of any medical agent. 



It is possible that worm-destroying medicines, like those rec- 

 ommended for stomach worms, if frequently repeated during 

 the summer, might prove both curative and preventive, by kill- 

 ing the adult worms, which live free in the intestine. Pasture 

 infection may be destroyed by plowing and cropping one season. 

 Dr. Dahymple and others have shown that lambs may suckle 

 the diseased dams under certain conditions and usually remain 

 free from infection. This is accomplished by what is known as 

 the bare-lot method. Under this system lambs are not allowed 

 access to any pasture that can possibly have been contaminated 

 by the older sheep. 



The bare-lot method provides that ewes and lambs must be 

 kept in a lot that is bare of any grass or weeds which sheep may 

 eat. This lot must be rather smooth and must drain promptly, 

 without standing pools after rain. No grazing for the older 

 sheep is permitted, the flock being fed on soiling crops and what- 

 ever gi'ain may be necessary. Fresh, clean water must be pro- 

 vided. Food and water must be given in such a way that they 

 cannot possibly be contaminated from the ground ; food that 

 falls out of the racks must be raked up rather frequently. 



Ewe lambs to be kept in the flock should be raised with spe- 

 cial care to avoid trouble the next season from chance infection 

 tliat occurs to sucli lambs from the bare lot. By this metliod 

 the lambs may run with the diseased ewes until weaning time 

 with comparatively slight risk of infection. In dealing with a 

 serious outbreak of this disease it should be remembered that 

 infested flocks usually do fairly well during the summer and 

 early fall montlos. If a flock is badly infested with nodule 



