ECZEMA IN SHEEP.
In anæmias squamous eruptions. In cold rainy weather moist eczema. Salving. Thin wooled. Congestion, swelling, papules, vesicles, scabs, depilation. Recovery with dry weather. Prevention: fold in rainy weather, covers. Pruriginous eczema. Fagopyrism.
The skin of the sheep is so densely covered by wool and so lubricated with its own secretion, that it is little liable to non-parasitic dermatitis, or such as exist are to a large extent overlooked. In internal parasitisms (distomatosis, strongyliasis, etc.), the wool becomes flattened (“clapped”) and the skin the seat of a dry (squamous) eczema with scaly accumulations around the roots of the wool.
Moist Eczema, the “rain rot” of the Germans is seen in low conditioned sheep which have been left out in the heavy cold rains, and is attributed to the direct entrance of the rain by the dorsal shed of the wool. In salving sheep it is a great point with the shepherds to avoid opening the way for such entrance, by shedding only at a short distance on each side of the spine, and never directly in the center. Thin wooled sheep are also specially liable to the disease. When the rain enters so as to soak the skin and deeper layers of the wool, it softens and macerates the skin, introduces microbes and favors decomposition and in various ways incites to dermatitis. The skin becomes red and swollen with an eruption of papules and vesicles, and an exudation which concretes in scabs around the wool, which under the constant accretions from below lifts the wool from its follicles, leaving bare scurfy, or vesicular patches. This appears in different parts of the body beginning in the region of the vertebræ (back, loins, croup), and extending on the shoulders, neck, sides of the chest and abdomen. The disease is rarely inveterate and generally subsides spontaneously on the return of the dry weather. Still it may cause considerable loss of wool and hence it may be desirable to fold the flocks during cold rainy seasons, or, if they must be run at pasture, to cover the back of each with a piece of sacking.