DISEASES OE THE C4ENEKAT1VE OEGANS. 149 



STERILITY FROM OTHER CAUSES. 



The questions as to whether a bull is a sure stock getter and 

 whether a cow is a breeder are so important that it would be wrong 

 to i)a,^s OA-er other prominent causes of sterility. Breeding at too 

 early an age is a common source of increasing wealmess of consti- 

 tution which has existed in certain breeds. Jerseys have especially 

 been made the victims of this mistake, the object being to establish 

 the highest milking powers in the smallest obtainable body which 

 will demand the least material and outlay for its constant repair of 

 waste. With success in this line there has been the counterbalancing 

 disadvantage of impaired vigor, with too often lessened fertility as 

 well as increased predisposition to disease. When the heifers of the 

 race have for generation after generation been bred under a 3'ear old, 

 the demand for the nourishment of the fetus is too great a drain on 

 the immature animal, which accordingly remains small and stunted. 

 As it fails to develop in size, so every organ fails to be nourished to 

 perfection. Similarly with the immature bull put to too many cows; 

 he fails to develop his full size, vigor, or stamina, and transfers his 

 acquired weakness to his progeny. An increasing number of barren 

 females and an increasing proclivity to abortions are the necessary 

 results of both courses. When this early breeding has occurred acci- 

 dentally it is well to dry up the dam just after calving, and to avoid 

 having her served again until full grown. 



Some highly fed and plethoric females seem to escape conception 

 by the verj- intensity of the generative ardor. The frequent passage 

 of urine, accompanied by contractions of the womb and vagina and 

 a profuse secretion from their surfaces, leads to the expulsion of the 

 semen after it has been lodged in the genitial passages. This may be 

 remedied somewhat by bleedin'g the cow shortly before putting to 

 the bull, so as to diminish the richness and stimulating quality of 

 the blood ; or better, by giving 1-^ pounds of Epsom salt a day or two 

 before she comes in heat, and subjecting her at the same time to a 

 spare diet. Should the excessive ardor of the cow not be controllable 

 in this way, she may be shut up for a day or two, until the heat is 

 passing off, when under the lessened excitement the semen is more 

 likely to be retai'hed. 



The various diseases of the ovaries, their tubes, the womb, the 

 testicles and their excretory ducts, as referred to under " Excess of 

 t^enereal desire," are causes of barrenness. In this connection it 

 may be said that the discharges consequent on calving are fatal to 

 the vitality of semen introduced before these have ceased to flow; 

 hence service too soon after calving, or that of a cow which has 

 had the womb or genital passages injured so as to keep up a muco- 

 purulent flow until the animal comes in heat, is liable to fail of 



