Raising Healthy Offspring Without Sterilizing the Milk. In the northwest territories cows and heifers that have reacted to tuberculin, but which otherwise appear to be in good health, are made into a herd by themselves and placed on a special range apart from all other cattle. They live in the open air, slight shelter being allowed in winter only, and their calves are allowed to suck the dams until winter. The wide range, the open air life, and the early destruction by oxygen and sunshine of the discharged bacilli, tend in the main to ward off infection, except such as comes in the milk, and the majority of the calves grow up in apparent health and are fattened for market. A small minority are born tuberculous or contract the infection from the milk, but this does not seriously impair the financial success, and living in the open air they bring little danger to others. The loss is infinitesimal as compared with the expense of milking a large herd, sterilizing the milk and feeding it by hand. Advanced cases, with objective symptoms, should always be removed, and the cows may be tested at intervals if compatible with profit. The seclusion of the herd should be complete, by distance, by the configuration of the country, or by fence.
For this system the climate of our Southern States, where stock can remain out of doors all the year, offers a better field than the semi-arctic northwest.
Removal of all Unthrifty Animals and Those Showing Physical Symptoms of Tuberculosis. Before the days of tuberculin testing I succeeded in extinguishing tuberculosis in several herds by the prompt removal of all unthrifty animals and such as showed objective symptoms of tuberculosis, the disinfection of the buildings, the restocking from sound herds, and the strict separation of the new stock from the old. In one herd of 200 this entailed the final destruction of the whole original herd; in others the destruction was in the main limited to particular (susceptible) families. But in these days, with the tuberculin test available, a resort to a method of this kind would produce an unnecessarily slow, uncertain and expensive result.
Removal of Animals Showing Objective Symptoms or Reaction under Tuberculin. The Bang (Danish) method is the chief example of this, and is so considerate of both state outlay and stock owner’s interests that it is deserving of high praise. Under it the State usually waits for the stock owner to take the initiative, but to encourage applications from the owners, it furnishes tuberculin testing without expense, and even allows a small indemnity for animals killed because of advanced tuberculosis. In return for this the stock owner agrees to furnish separate buildings (or enclosures), yards and pasturages, new or, when necessary, disinfected, one set for the high conditioned, nonreacting, healthy herd, and a second for the animals that reacted but which show no further sign of tuberculosis, with separate attendants, utensils and other appointments for each. This reacting herd is furnished with the best of food, air, accommodation and hygiene generally, and the milk is sterilized before it is allowed to pass into consumption by man or for calves or pigs or for the production of butter. The quarantined herd is marked, registered, and kept under government surveillance; it cannot be parted with for stock uses, but it is at the disposal of the owner to keep it for milk, or fatten at once for the butcher. Finally every member of this herd is slaughtered under government inspection, and the beef put on the market or sent to the rendering works as may be decided. The system secures the hearty coöperation of dairyman, dealer and government, and while it comes short of the speed and efficiency of a generally applied method of extinction, it is accomplishing a great work for Denmark, putting an immediate stop to the advance of the disease in the worst infected herds, and placing the latent cases of such herds in a safe seclusion for the rest of their lives. At first the tested herds showed 40 per cent. affected; now less than 20 per cent.
The feature which would be likely to work the least satisfactorily in the United States, is the disposal of the sterilized milk as such. It is to be feared that this milk would find but a poor market with us, and if it proved unsalable, the preservation of the reacting herd would be no longer an economic success.
In Pennsylvania where practically the same method is in force, leaving it in the option of the owner to keep the reacting latent cases and sterilize their milk, or to abandon them to the State, have them appraised and slaughtered with indemnity, the uniform practice has been to accept the latter alternative. Not a single owner, I believe, has elected to keep a herd in quarantine and sell the milk sterilized. The result has been that four times the number of applications come in that the appropriation will warrant the officials to take in hand.
A special feature of the Pennsylvania method is the provision that a stockowner can have his herd examined, and tested with tuberculin, at his expense, the State to furnish a certificate setting forth the condition of the animals. In case of infection, the owner has the option of abandoning the reacting ones to the State, to be secluded, or appraised and slaughtered, he meanwhile guaranteeing that he shall introduce no new animals into the herd except by tuberculin test under the direction of the State Board.
The usual provision is in force that no indemnity is allowed for any animal that entered the state not more than three months before, and without the tuberculin test demanded of all such stock animals.
Indemnities are restricted to $25 per head and under for non-registered animals and grades, and $50 for registered thoroughbreds. The average appraised price has been $23.
On the whole an excellent work is being done in Pennsylvania, and herds now tested are found to contain not more than half as many infected animals as did those tested a few years ago. A better showing would doubtless have been made if the State appropriation had permitted the board to give attention to all applications made.