The acorn, or fruit of the oak (Quercus robur and Quercus sessiliflora), is much valued as a food for swine. “A peck of acorns a day with a little bran will make a hog, ’tis said, increase a pound weight per diem for two months together.” Though largely consumed by swine with no apparent ill effects, acorns constitute a dangerous food for young cattle, especially when eaten before they are ripe and when herbage or other feeding is scanty or restricted.
The symptoms comprise dulness, loss of appetite, constipation, followed by diarrhœa, with straining and colicky pains, head carried low, eyes retracted, with mucus about the eyelids and blood-stained discharge from the nose. Frequently the abdomen is distended. Temperature normal.
The lesions are, abrasions of the buccal membrane on the palate, cheeks, etc.; impaction and intense congestion of the omasum.
Treatment. Change of pasture. Alkalies—potash or soda bicarbonate, magnesia; tonics and stimulants.
URTICACEÆ (NETTLE FAMILY).
* Urtica gracilis.—The slender nettle covers thousands of acres of reclaimed swamp land in Michigan and Wisconsin, which is made nearly worthless by its dense growth, horses refusing to pass through it to cultivate the soil.
CHENOPODIACEÆ (GOOSEFOOT FAMILY).
Fig. 77.—Slender nettle (Urtica gracilis).
Sarcobatus vermiculatus.—Black greasewood, or chico, is a scraggy shrub which grows in strongly alkaline soil in the south-western and western portions of the United States. A correspondent in New Mexico states that on one occasion he counted as many as 1,000 sheep that had been killed by eating the leaves of this plant. It is claimed that cows are not affected by eating it at any time, and that sheep can eat it quite freely in winter. Death is perhaps due more to tympanites rather than to any poisonous substance which the plant contains.