DISEASES OF ANIMALS 



137 



pecially if they are fed on sour, decom- 

 posing and irritating food. In such 

 cases the saliva drips from the corners 

 of the mouth and the hog champs with 

 his teeth. The treatment for such trouble 

 is very obvious : it should consist in the 

 use of a cleanly food supply, together 

 with an abundance of pure water. 



Loss of appetite — While hogs are usu- 

 ally ravenous feeders, they sometimes 

 lose appetite as the result of the long 

 continued use of the same ration with- 

 out sufficient variety. Thus, corn, with- 

 out any other grain, occasionally becomes 

 so distasteful to hogs that they refuse to 

 eat it. The usual method, which in most 

 cases is successful when loss of appetite 

 appears, consists in feeding a ration of 

 greater variety, with more frequent 

 changes. 



Poisoning — One of the most common 

 forms of poisoning in hogs is due to 

 feeding swill from hotels where the 

 dishes are washed with washing powder 

 or other kind of irritating, highly alka- 

 line soap. The symptoms are fever, 

 partial paralysis, diarrhea and occasion- 

 ally vomiting. The rate of mortality is 

 very high, and in many instances this 

 form of poisoning has been mistaken for 

 hog cholera. A number of plants are 

 known to be poisonous to hogs, but, as 

 a rule, cases of poisoning from this cause 

 are comparatively rare, much more so 

 than in sheep, despite the fact that hogs 

 are commonly considered as exercising lit- 

 tle choice in their selection of food. Cot- 

 tonseed meal has long been known to 

 poison hogs if fed in large quantities for 

 long periods. The conditions under 

 which this meal may be safely fed are 

 discussed in Part IX, on Swine. Many 

 complaints have been made regarding the 

 poisonous effects of young cocklebur on 

 hogs. The plant seems to be eaten most 

 frequently when it is about 3 to 6 inches 

 high and is particularly attractive at 

 that time, since it starts early in the 

 spring and may be the only green mate- 

 rial to be found. Apparently it is quite 

 doubtful whether the plant actually con- 

 tains any poisonous principle. Experi- 

 ments by Craig and Bitting indicated 

 that the bad effects are due to irritation 

 from the burs eaten by the hogs. 



Scours — Young pigs kept in dark, 

 filthy quarters, with little attention to 

 the condition of their food, may develop 

 serious cases of scours. Such outbreaks 

 are due to the same causes which pro- 

 duce similar digestive troubles in calves, 



lambs and colts. The trouble is merely 

 one of improper dietetics and bad hygi- 

 ene. Treatment obviously consists in 

 avoiding these improper conditions by 

 the use of clean food in properly balanced 

 rations and cleanliness about the pig- 

 gery. In cases where the trouble per- 

 sists for a long time, with the ordinary 

 symptoms of dysentery or diarrhea, it 

 may be well to give a dose of 2 ounces 

 castor oil or 5 grains of calomel followed 

 by V-2 teaspoonful of laudanum. 



Constipation i s a trouble which most 

 frequently develops from the lack of 

 green food or other laxative material in 

 the diet. If the ration is too dry and 

 not enough water is offered to the hogs, 

 the obvious remedy consists in using 

 more succulence in the ration, especially 

 slops of cleanly character and giving a 

 cathartic of castor oil or Epsom salts. 



Hogs may also at times be affected 

 with chronic indigestion (for treatment 

 see under Diseases of the Horse), ergot 

 poisoning (see under Poisonous Plants), 

 peritonitis (see under Diseases of the 

 Horse), sunstroke (see under Diseases 

 of the Horse), garget (see under Dis- 

 eases of Cattle), snuffles (see under Dis- 

 eases of Sheep) and pneumonia (see un- 

 der Diseases of the Horse). 



DISEASES OF SHEEP 



In treating the common diseases which 

 affect sheep, it seems best to classify 

 them according to the parts of the body 

 which they affect as well as according to 

 the nature of the various diseases. As a 

 rule, little attention is paid to the com- 

 mon symptoms of disease among range 

 sheep, partly for the reason that under 

 the conditions of sheep ranching it is 

 practically impossible to keep close 

 enough watch on the sheep to observe the 

 first symptoms of poisoning or the devel- 

 opment of some disease. In the more 

 thickly settled portions of the country, 

 however, where the farmer has only a 

 small flock of sheep, they may be watched 

 as closely as other animals and treated 

 promptly for disease symptoms as soon 

 as they appear. 



Sore mouth — The mucous membrane 

 of the mouth and throat is exceedingly 

 delicate, but ordinarily sheep do not 

 take food which is likely to lacerate or 

 injure the mouth. Occasionally, stiff part- 

 icles of food are taken along with other 

 material causing injury to the mucous 

 membrane and resulting in a soreness 

 which prevents the sheep from properly 



