“A careful and observing stockman of Colorado, who has had a large experience with alfalfa bloating, informs me that he prefers a moderately small, sharp butcher knife to either a trocar and cannula or a pocket knife. It gives relief quicker and with no bad effects. Sometimes, if the opening through the skin is small, made by a small knife, a quill or small tube is fastened in to keep the incision open, so the gas can escape. It is usually necessary to keep the incision open for several hours. The only bad result of tapping is that occasionally green food gets outside of the rumen into the abdominal cavity in sufficient quantities to cause inflammation and death; but if the operation is intelligently performed, these bad results are extremely rare—probably not more than one case in 100. If the weather is warm, care should be taken that flies do not bother the wound in the skin.
“If the case is not severe enough to warrant tapping, the following remedies will be found useful: A gag made by winding a good-sized rope back of the horns and through the mouth, or a bit, made of a piece of wood the size of a fork handle, can be tied in the animal’s mouth. The bit should be smooth, to prevent injuring the mouth. Then a small handful of salt should be thrown well back on the roots of the tongue. This causes the animal to work its tongue, increases the flow of saliva, and thus favors the regurgitation, or gulping up, of the gas. The salt and saliva swallowed help to stop fermentation.
“Blankets wrung out of cold water and wrapped around the abdomen or belly, or cold water dashed on with a bucket, often give relief. Turpentine given as a drench, in milk sufficient that it will not irritate the animal, is good, two ounces of turpentine for adult cattle and one-half ounce for sheep being a dose. Hyposulphite of soda, dissolved in water and given as a drench, is good; one ounce for cattle and two drachms for sheep. This can be repeated every half hour for two or three doses. Aqua ammonia, two ounces for cattle and one-half ounce for sheep, well diluted with water; carbolic acid, cattle 30 drops, sheep 8 to 10 drops in sufficient water; common soda, in half-ounce doses for cattle and one-half drachm for sheep, can be given. In giving medicine as drenches, they should be well diluted with water or other substances until they will not burn when touched to the tongue. In giving drenches, be careful and not choke the animal. If the animal coughs or struggles violently, stop at once until it recovers somewhat. Give drenches slowly.
“Drenches are mostly administered from a long-necked, thick, glass bottle, or drenching horn. Take hold of the nose with the left hand, by putting the thumb and finger in the nostrils, while an assistant takes hold of the horns, and tips the head back. Standing on the right side of the animal, with the right hand put the neck of the bottle in the right corner of the mouth, and pour the medicine in slowly. After the bloating has been relieved, it is a good plan to give the animal a purgative—one pound of Epsom salts, with one-half pound common salt, for cattle; and for a sheep, six ounces of Epsom salts and three ounces of common salt, dissolved in plenty of warm water, and given as a drench. The animals should also be dieted until their digestive organs regain their normal condition. By dieting, I do not mean starving, but plenty of easily digested and nutritious food. An animal that bloats once is very liable to bloat again. By judicious handling and feeding, by watching animals closely, and treating them in time, few will be lost by alfalfa bloating.”
ALFALFA AS A SOILING CROP
Alfalfa may be cut for soiling just when it contains the highest per cent of protein, while if pastured some is eaten before its best period, the most of it after that point is reached, and probably a large portion of the leaves is lost entirely. Cut for soiling and fed daily, when wilted, there is less danger from bloat, as in this way animals will eat stalks as well as leaves: the entire product is used and there is no loss from trampling the fields nor by plants being covered and smothered with animal droppings.
SOME COMPARISONS
The Nebraska station reports that in an experiment there it required .71 of an acre to keep a cow for a given time by soiling, while by pasturing it required 3.63 acres; also that the cows kept on pasture during the experiment actually consumed more grain than those that were soiled. This report further states that while the pastured cows gave more milk each day, the cost of production was greater. By another experiment with cows for a single year it was indicated (Bul. No. 69) “that about twice as much feed was secured from the land when the alfalfa was soiled as when it was pastured. The average daily production of milk and of butterfat was markedly greater when the crop was pastured than when soiled. In one test this amounted to one-third more, but in the other test the difference was not so great. The profits from soiling as compared with pasturing will depend largely on two factors—the price of labor and the value of the land.”
A western Kansas farmer writes that one acre of alfalfa cut daily for soiling maintained as many cows as he was able to keep on a five-acre field used as pasture.
The Kansas station reported that in an experiment, lasting 144 days, the cows on alfalfa pasture returned an income, less cost of grain fed, of $4.23, while cows soiled on alfalfa cut and fed green returned an income, less the grain fed, of $18.08. This station also reported that a neighboring dairyman maintained ten milch cows for a whole summer, without any grain, on two acres of alfalfa, cut and fed to them fresh three times a day.