HOOVE.
This is not common, to any dangerous degree, among sheep; but, if turned upon clover when their stomachs are empty, it will sometimes ensue.
Hoove is a distension of the paunch by gas extricated from the fermentation of its vegetable contents, and evolved more rapidly, or in larger quantities, than can be neutralized by the natural alkaline secretions of the stomach. When the distention is great, the blood is prevented from circulating in the vessels of the rumen, and is determined to the head. The diaphragm is mechanically obstructed from making its ordinary contractions, and respiration, therefore, becomes difficult and imperfect. Death, in such cases, soon supervenes.
Treatment. In ordinary cases, gentle but prolonged driving will effect a cure. When the animal appears swelled almost to bursting, and is disinclined to move, it is better to open the paunch at once. At the most protruberant point of the swelling, on the left side, a little below the hip bone, plunge a trochar or knife, sharp at the point and dull on the edge, into the stomach. The gas will rapidly escape, carrying with it some of the liquid and solid contents of the stomach. If no measures are taken to prevent it, the peristaltic motion, as well as the collapse of the stomach, will soon cause the orifices through the abdomen and paunch not to coincide, and thus portions of the contents of the former will escape into the cavity of the latter.
However perfect the cure of hoove, these substances in the belly will ultimately produce fatal irritation. To prevent this, a canula, or little tube, should be inserted through both orifices as soon as the puncture is made. Where the case is not imminent, alkalies have sometimes been successfully administered, which combine with the carbonic acid gas, and thus at once reduce its volume. A flexible probang, or in default of it, a rattan, or grape-vine, with a knot on the end, may be gently forced down the gullet, and the gas thus permitted to escape.
HYDATID ON THE BRAIN.
The symptoms of this disease, known as turnsick, sturdy, staggers, water in the head, etc., are a dull, moping appearance, the sheep separating from the flock, a wandering and blue appearance of the eye, and sometimes partial or total blindness; the sheep appears unsteady in its walk, will sometimes stop suddenly and fall down, at others gallop across the field, and, after the disease has existed for some time, will almost constantly move round in a circle—there seems, indeed, to be an aberration of the intellect of the animal. These symptoms, though rarely all present in the same subject, are yet sufficiently marked to prevent any mistake as to the nature of the disease.