DISEASES AND TREATMENT OF CATTLE 423 
and with your knife scrape up and down on the cord until 
it is scraped off. This prevents bleeding. Fill the holes full 
of salty butter and let him go. 
The main thing after castrating bulls, bull calves, boars 
and dogs is to keep them away from dampness. If they 
swell, bathe with lukewarm water and soap and open up tht^ 
cuts witli salty butter on your finger. If it swells very much, 
bathe with lukewarm water and salt three times a day, and 
after bathing apply white lotion. Sometimes, a few weeks 
after the cuts are healed, the bag swells and becomes very 
sore and hot. In this case you may know there is matter 
forming in the bag. Bathe well three times a day with luke- 
warm water and after bathing apply white lotion and a hot 
poultice of half linseed meal and half bran. Fasten the poul- 
tice by means of strings over the back. This brings the fes- 
tering to a head. Change the poultice every time you bathe 
the bag. As soon as you find a soft spot in the bag, lance it 
to let the matter out. Make a good sized hole, large enough 
to run your finger up to clean it out. After this, treat by 
bathing with lukewarm water and soap and applying the 
white lotion twice a day. Keep the cuts' open by putting 
butter on your finger and running it up into the hole once a 
day until it commences to heal. 
8. Rig or Original Bulls. 
A rig or original bull is one in which one or both of the 
testicles never come down into the scrotum, or bag. These 
kind of bulls cannot be castrated like horses, and after they 
get a little age become a perfect nuisance. 
Advice. — When you go to castrate a calf and find that 
only one or neither testicles are down, fatten and get rid of 
it, for it very rarely comes down afterwards. It will save 
you a lot of trouble if you get rid of it while young. 
9. Ringing a Bull. 
Secure the animal by throwing him, or having him in a 
solid, narrow stall. Take a piece of sharp-pointed, clean, 
hard wood, or a sharp piece of bright steel large enough to 
make a hole for the ring. Pierce the hole through in the soft 
part of the nose, just in front of the hard cartilage that sep- 
arates the nostrils. After the hole is through, open and oil 
the ring, slip ft through, close it and put in the screw. After 
the ring is in turn it every day until the wound is healed. 
These rings can be obtained at any hardware store 
