CHAPTER V. 



MILK FElVEK. 



This disease usually sets in 24 to 48 hours 

 after the birth of the calf. In some cases as 

 long a period as three days passes before the 

 disease develops. The most common symptoms 

 first noticed are a weakness in the legs, espe- 

 cially the hind legs. The cow staggers when it 

 walks and soon falls and fails to rise, lying with 

 its head on the side of the breast. Constipation 

 is one of the symptoms of the disease. Many 

 times the cow appears like a person stricken 

 with apoplexy. She stops eating, and ceases to 

 secrete milk. 



Little Trouble in Winter Dairying. — ^Milk 

 fever has been one of the most fatal diseases to 

 which the cow was subject. The dread of it 

 possessed me for thirty years or more, but I had 

 no losses from this cause so long as my dairy 

 was operated as a winter dairy, the cows all 

 freshening in the autumn and passing their dry 

 period on pasture supplemented with green suc- 

 culent feed when the pastures were short and 

 being fed no grain food during their dry period, 



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