CONSIDERING FOR A SPECIAL PURPOSE
Now, as a last factor of your examination, consider the uses to which the animal is put. If you are looking for breeding animals be sure to know that the udder is not injured. Of what use is a cow with a bad udder? How often do we find a quarter of the udder destroyed or a teat cut or so badly mangled as to be of little use! Some udders are dead, heavy, fleshy; some are diseased, lumpy; and even though the animal is otherwise good you must reject her.
If the udder is good, superior in many respects, and shows great milk production, you can often afford to overlook other defects, especially if the result of accident.
In the case of horses, a disease or blemish due to accident may be overlooked, if the work to which the animal will be subjected does not interfere, let us say, for breeding purposes. The horse has good conformation, good quality, is healthy and very superior, but unfortunately a leg was broken. Shall she be rejected as a breeder? No heavy work will be required of her—she is wanted for colt raising. Take her; of course you will pay less for her. This accident interferes in no way with her value for breeding purposes. Many cases of accidental injuries are similar to this example among cattle and horses.
A good rule is to reject those having defects or blemishes that interfere with functional activity or the work to which you wish to put them. Then, as breeders, reject all with constitutional defects, as bad feet, narrow hocks, coarse disease-appearing bones, and bad conformation and scrubby character.
CHAPTER V
Wounds and Their Treatment
FRACTURES
When a bone is broken into two or more parts it is said to be fractured. These may be straight across, up and down, or oblique. Ordinary fractures are easily treated by splints, but sometimes fractures are so serious as to destroy the value of the animal.
The stockman has all sorts of wounds with which to deal. He may guard his animals with the care and caution of a mother and still find constant bother and worry to face in the daily management of his stock. Today it may be a wound caused by a nail puncture in the foot; tomorrow a cut occasioned by a fence; and then almost immediately another, the result of a kick or a hook; with patience nearly exhausted, now follow bruises of many sorts and unexplainable lacerations.
These troubles occur on the best managed farms. There is but one thing to do: meet each case as it occurs and lend such assistance as you can that nature may repair the wrecked tissue at the earliest possible moment.