The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-09-29
!. Blaek.Lex IN Calves.

This Il the season OF the year when
that dreaded disease, black-leg or joint
murrain, is most apt to attack young
cattle, particularly calves that are at
pasture. An old subscriber at Water
bury, VT, asks how to prevent the dis
ease. Most persons would wait till
their calves were attacked with the
disease, and then write for information
concerning the method of treatment
and cure, forgetting, or not knowing,
that this disease ordinarily makes quick
work, and that animals attacked with
il will often be dead before an answer.
even by mail, could be received from
any distance. The disease is known
among veterinary physicians as inf1am-
matory fever. but among farmers in
England and our own country it is
known as black-leg, quarter-evil, joint
murrain, blood-suicking, shoot of blood.
black-quarter, etc.
Our Waterbury correspondent says
that nearly every year the disease
makes its appearance among his calves
and those of his ncighbors, during the
last of August or the early part of Sep
TENDER, after they have been turned
into the fall feed and are just begin
ming to gain in flesh. This is generally
the experience of those who lose ami
mails by this disease, and plainly indi-
Gates one of its causes, or more proper
ly its chief cause. The animal is being
over fed, and is making blood too fast.
The rich, tender feed of the moving
fields is too great temptation to ami
mails that have been kept little short
81, alyc nd irpct
themselves and clog the machinery
of the system. More food is crowded
into the stomach than can be thorough
~ digested, or more food is digested
and converted into blood than the sys-
tenn can assimilate. 1t is like over
crowding threshing machine with
bundles of grain. There is a limit to
the amount of work that any machine
can do, as there is to the number of per-
sons that can pass out of church or
hall door in specified time. A little
over crowding stops all progress. The
animal system is wonderfully fitted to
adapt itself to surrounding circum-
stances. Animals, subjected for long
periods or through many successive
generations, to certain conditions,
whether favorable or unfavorable, will
so adapt themselves to those conditions
that any sudden change, either for the
better or the worse. may cause trouble.
1t is very poor economy, as every one
knows, to starve or under-feed an ami
NAL. All the food given in such cases
is wasted. Merely Keeping an animal
alive. under ordinary conditions, is in
excusable. If on a voyage at sea, or
during a snow blockade. it is found that
animals must be put upon a short al
lowance to save life, the case is differ
eat, and a partial starvation may be the
Only prudent course to pursue. Work
ing animals, COWS in milk. and all ami
mails that are of the proper age to grow
and gain in flesh, must have more food
than merely what is required to sustain
life, and the more they are given, up to
certain point. the better will they pay
for the food consumed; but there is a
point beyond which it is positively dan
gerous to 60.
A farmer with good COW giving
eighteen quarts OF milk per day on full
feed, thought, by little extra crowd
ing with grain, to make his eighteen
quart COW twenty quart cow 1t took
but few days to ruin his animal. The
extra forcing clogged the machine, and
he soon got no milk and in little while
had no cow Calves and young cattle.
that have been kept a little short dur
ing the dry weather and scanty feed of
midsummer, should be turned in to the
rich after feed of the moving fields with
great dea, OF caution. They should
not be turned in to stay till they are so
full that they can scarcely walk or
breathe, but should be left in but q
short time at once, until they get over
their undue hunger, or till the system
has had time to accommodate itself to the
change in the character of the food.
Bleeding and the insertion of setons
in the dewiap are common methods of
treatment for the prevention and cure
OF diseases caused by such oyer-feeding,
and this treatment is founded upon
correct principles; but it is far better
to avoid the necessity of the practice,
by Withholding the excessive amount of
rich food. This may be done by taking
the animals out of the after feed as
sobn as they have eaten all they need,
and letting them lie in a short pasture
while they chew the cud and digest the
rich food; or they may be tethered by
rope and pin, 50 that they cannot over
fill themselves. A few ropes, or lit
tie extra time devoted to changing
stock from one field to another arc
cheap compared to the loss and disap-
pointment attending the sickness and
death of choice animals. -Nea0 En-
gland Farmer.