TWISTED STOMACH WORMS
A common attitude observed when sheep are afflicted with twisted stomach worms. The animal loses in flesh, and unless relief is found in time, dies. The parasite is shown in the illustration.
But no sheep owner should feel wholly satisfied by preventive treatment of stomach worms. Twice a year the whole flock should be drenched with some agent which will destroy the mature worms. There are two very inexpensive drenches which will quite effectually do this. The one is gasoline, the other coal tar creosote. The objection to gasoline is that it needs to be so extremely carefully used or sheep will be killed by it. The dose is 1 tablespoonful (never more at one dose) to a mature sheep; mix with not less than 4 tablespoonfuls of raw linseed oil (never boiled oil); then add a half pint of sweet milk. In giving, set the sheep up on its haunches and shake the liquids well together until the last minute it is administered, or the gasoline will separate and, if it enters the stomach in the unmixed form, it will seriously injure and may kill the sheep.
There is no direct vermifuge that will as effectually kill all species of worms in a sheep’s stomach and intestines as will gasoline; yet the coal tar creosote or the more refined class of sheep dips, if given after a full 12-hour fast, before the flock is turned to pasture in the spring, and again about November, will destroy a large number of the mature worms. All lambs born in April or May should be drenched about August or September following, to be certain of ridding them of worms that may later cause their death. The dose of any of the sheep dips is a dessertspoonful mixed in a full pint of water.
STONE IN BLADDER.
—See [Concretions or Calculi of Urinary Organs].
STRANGLES.
—This trouble, commonly called colt distemper, affects horses, and rarely mules and donkeys. It is such an infectious disease that nearly all horses contract the disease when colts and usually remain immune to future exposures. The cause is a very small organism or germ which enters the system when a healthy colt comes in contact with a diseased one or when fed and watered in infected vessels. The seat of trouble is largely restricted to the respiratory organs, occasionally causing difficulty in breathing, owing to swelling in region of throat or to accumulations in air passages.
The symptoms start out with more or less sluggishness. The animal eats little, and does not care to take much exercise. A little watery discharge frequently appears from the eyes, and about the same time a watery discharge from the nostrils, which soon becomes thicker and more yellow in color. Usually the glands between the lower jawbones become enlarged and undergo suppuration with a rupture of them and free discharge of pus. The temperature of the animal may be slightly or very greatly increased from 103° to 105°. The pulsations may also be considerably quickened. When complications do not occur this disease usually runs its course in two weeks, leaving the animal little the worse for having passed through the affliction.
The milder forms of this disease will need little or no treatment other than careful feeding and nursing. A laxative diet, with something green, if possible, should be given. The colt should be placed in clean, airy, and comfortable quarters, but not in a draft. To hasten the suppuration of the glands a poultice of hot bran or flaxseed may be applied to that region, and as soon as softening can be detected within, puncture the gland containing abscess with a clean knife blade and allow the escape of the collection of pus. During the course of the disease the animal should not be worked and care should be taken that it be not exposed to conditions likely to produce a cold.