have never been seen, and in which accordingly treatment has 

 never been practised ; in others the infection is limited apparently' 

 to two or three adjacent pens. It is possible that a rancher 

 starting afresh could by taking proper precautions, the nature of 

 which will readily suggest themselves, stock his pens in such a 

 manner as to harbor not a single worm, and could maintain them 

 indefinitely in that condition. With this problem, as with that 

 of distemper, preventive measures should in the future assume a 

 predominant role. It should, for instance,i become a matter of 

 routine to examine for eggs the feces of any new fox, which it is 

 proposed to introduce into a ranch; and in case these are found, to 

 subject the animal before admission to the most efficacious course 

 of treatment that can be devised. Laboratory control of some sort 

 would of course be necessary to the complete success of such a plan. 



(b) Hookworms. — The Health of Animals Branch of the 

 Dominion Department of Agriculture has recently found that 

 many domesticated foxes are infected by the hookworm. 

 The presence of this para-site cannot fail to have deleterious effects 

 upon the health and vitality of the animal harboring it. Just 

 how extensive and how serious these effects may be remains to 

 be determined. In any case it will be necessary in the future 

 for the fox breeder to pay attention to this hitherto unsuspected 

 enemy, and to initiate measures for effectively controlling its 

 spread. He can hardly do so without the advice of an expert, 

 and the assistance afforded by a readily accessible laboratory. 



3. FOOD POISONING. 



Acute food poisoning has on several occasions been responsil)le 

 for serious losses among both young and adult foxes. This could 

 occur only when the rancher had not taken sufficient care to 

 ascertain the fitness for consumption of the meat he was feeding. 

 It would obviously be to the benefit of the industry as a whole 

 if it adopted some general co-operative system, whereby all meat 

 intended for foxes should be first inspected, and then properly 

 stored in cold storage plants at a sufficient number of readily 

 available centres. 



4. IMPERFECT NUTRITION. 



However important the factors of loss hitherto discussed, 

 their elimination would leave the average yield of the ranches still 



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