112 



Navel III or Joint III. 



[may, 



lambing yard. Some farmers choose a different site each year^ 

 but others lamb down year after year on the same spot. The 

 shepherds, although practical men, have little notion of anti- 

 septic conditions ; for example, the dead lambs are the 

 shepherd's perquisite, and in many cases the shepherd skins 

 the lambs himself; in so skinning he cuts into the abscesses of 

 lambs that have died of this disease, and with hands covered 

 with germs he may help a ewe to lamb or assist a newly-born 

 lamb on to its feet. In such a case, by putting his hand under 

 the lamb's belly, he places his infected hand directly on the 

 open navel. On one farm a manure heap stood in the 

 middle of the lambing pens, and a score of skinned lambs 

 were lying on it in all stages of putrefaction. The shepherds 

 are also in the habit of opening the abscesses with their knives, 

 and letting the contents fall on the ground, which is often the 

 floor of the lambing yard ; it will be easily imagined how 

 saturated the ground becomes when this has been going on year 

 after year. 



When a lamb has died of Big Joint it has been the custom to 

 take one lamb from a ewe that has twins and foster it on to the 

 ewe that has lost her lamb. The result is that the second lamb 

 dies in consequence of the ewe's udder having been infected by 

 the first lamb. When it is desired to get a ewe to foster-mother 

 another lamb when her own has died, the shepherd often skins the 

 dead lamb, and ties the skin on to the substituted lamb. There 

 is no harm in this being done when the skinned lamb has not died 

 of an infectious disease, but in this district the risk is too great. 



It is not probable that any preventive measures will entirely 

 eradicate this disease from this district, but the following recom- 

 mendations would, it is believed, do much to prevent losses from 

 this cause. 



i. The large flocks should be sub-divided for lambing purposes. 

 Instead of one large lambing yard three or four smaller yards 

 •should be provided ; if the disease appears in one of these 

 smaller yards it may be prevented from spreading to the others 

 if all intercourse between the diseased yard and the others is 

 stopped. The sites may be chosen as near the house as possible, 

 but on fresh ground each year ; a site once used should rest for 

 several years. 



