Common Diseases of Farm Animals

by Robert Alexander Craig

An impure water supply is a common cause of disease. A deep well that is closed in properly and does not permit of contamination from filth, does not insure a clean water supply if the trough or tank is not kept clean.

Farm Buildings.—If stockmen would make a more careful study of the kind of farm buildings most suitable to their needs, the selection of the location, the proportions, the arrangement of the interior and the lighting and ventilation, there would be a great saving in losses from disease, and the cost of building in many cases would be lessened. Your neighbor's building that you have taken for your model may not be suitable for your needs. It may be more expensive than your financial condition permits. It may be poorly lighted and ventilated and not suited to the site that you have selected.

Biological Products.—There are a number of biological products that may be used in the prevention and control of disease. Some of these products, such as tuberculin and malein, enable the owner to rid his herds of tubercular cows and glandered horses before these diseases have become far enough advanced to be recognized by the visible symptoms alone. Black leg, anthrax and hog-cholera vaccines are valuable agents in the control of disease. In the treatment of fistula and infectious abortion, bacterins may be used. There are many other germ diseases and infections for which vaccines and bacterins may be used. However, we must not depend wholly on these agents in the control of disease. We must possess a knowledge of the manner in which the infection is spread, for without this knowledge we would be unable to prevent its dissemination over a wide area.

Medicinal Treatment.—The average stockman or veterinarian is more familiar with the treatment of disease with drugs than he is with the preventive measures just described. This statement does not imply that a knowledge of medicinal therapeutics is not of the greatest importance in the treatment of disease. The ultimate object of all drugs is both to prevent and cure disease, but the injudicious use of a drug does neither. A discussion of this subject cannot be entered into here, and because of its largeness it is not advisable to discuss it further than a brief summary of the methods of administering drugs.

Administration of Drugs.—Drugs may be administered by the following channels: by way of the mouth, in the feed or as a drench; by injecting into the tissues beneath the skin or hypodermically; by rubbing into the skin; by the air passages and the lungs; and by injecting into the rectum.

If the animal is not too sick to eat and the drug does not possess an unpleasant taste, it may be given with the feed. If soluble, it may be given with the drinking water, or in any case, it may be mixed with ground feed if this method is to be preferred. In all cases the medicine must be well mixed with the feed. This is especially important if there are a number of animals to be treated, as there is more certainty of each animal getting the proper dose and the danger of overdosing is avoided. If the young animal is nursing the mother, we can take advantage of certain drugs being eliminated in the mother's milk and administer the drug to the mother.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.—A good kind of a dose syringe.]

DRENCHES.—In the larger animals a bulky drench is sometimes difficult to administer, and we should, in all cases, count on a portion being wasted.

Horses are sometimes difficult to drench, and it may be advisable to confine the horse in some way. Small drenches can readily be given with a syringe (Fig. 6) or a small bottle. In giving bulky drenches it is most convenient to use a long-necked, heavy glass bottle. The horse should be backed into a narrow stall and the head elevated by placing a loop in the end of a small rope over the upper jaw, passing the rope back of the nose piece on the halter and throwing it over a beam, and raising the head until the mouth is slightly higher than the throat. If the horse refuses to swallow, a tablespoonful of clean water may be dropped into the nostril. This forces it to swallow. A drench should never be given through the nose, as it may pass into the air passages and cause a fatal inflammation of the lungs.

Cattle can be easily drenched by taking hold of the nostrils with the fingers, or snapping a bull ring into the partition between the nostrils and elevating the head.