USA > Michigan > Montcalm County > Montcalm County, Michigan, rural directory, 1917 > Part 31
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COUGH .- If a horse coughs, dampen his hay, wet his mixed feed, keep him out of a draught; after exercise blanket him. (See Heaves.)
CRIBBING OR WIND-SUCKING .- This is a bad habit, rather than a disease. The horse bites his manger or other con- venient object, sucks air and makes a peculiar grunting noise. Prevention aids a cure. Iron mangers and stable fittings are a great help; or box stalls containing no projecting wooden objects.
CURB .- A curved, unnatural condition of the back part of the hock. Lameness, enlargement and more or less inflam- mation are symptoms. Liniments, iodine ointment, blisters, and, as a last resort, firing, are all recommended.
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DISTEMPER .- Keep hot poultices of bread and milk or oil meal on the neck of horses with throat distemper; change them often. In severe cases, rub the glands and muscles with spirits of tur- pentine and camphor. (See Choking Distemper.)
DYSENTERY .- If this trouble exists, place the horse in a dry, well-ventilated stable, rub the surface of the body fre- quently, and keep it and the legs warm with blankets and bandages. The food must be light and easy to digest, the water pure and in small quantities. Give first, castor oil, one-half pint, and laudanum, two ounces. The strength must be kept up by milk punches, eggs, beef tea, oatmeal gruel, etc.
EYE. - See Hooks, Pink-Eye and Blindness.
FARCY .- A form of glanders which at- tacks the skin. (See Glanders.)
FETLOCK .- If this be sprained and the injury slight, bandage and apply cold water frequently. Where the lameness is intense, and the swelling and heat great, the leg should be kept in a con- stant stream of cold water. When the inflammation has been subdued, the joint should be blistered. (See Knuckling.)
FITs .- See Staggers.
FOUNDER .- The front feet are usually affected, the delicate laminæ being in- flamed. Acute founder, if not cured, de- velops into chronic founder, and no sure cure is known for the latter stage of the disease. The trouble may come from any one of several causes: Long or hard driving, hard pavements or roads, feeding or watering a horse while he is exceedingly warm or tired, etc., etc. Lameness, pain and heat in the fore feet, are common symptoms. For an attack of this kind, the best things to do are about as follows: Get the shoes off, put the horse in his stall, and soak or pack his feet in cold water, moss, or whatever is handy; give a tablespoonful of saltpeter as a drench three times a day; send for a veterinarian.
GALLS .- See Shoulder and Wind Galls. GIDDINESS .- A horse which is fre- quently or occasionally overtaken with this trouble is dangerous to use. It is hard to cure. It indicates the need of moderate driving, especially in hot weather, and that a small amount of hay should be fed.
GLANDERS .- Whenever a horse is seen to bleed or emit offensive matter from the nostrils, glanders may be suspected and home treatment should not be at- tempted. It may be a dangerous case. which is fatal alike to man and beast. A veterinary surgeon should be called.
GORGED STOMACH .- This results when a horse has been fed after a long fast. The small stomach of a horse is so dis-
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." tended that it is unable to contract itself upon its contents, a motion which is necessary in digestion. The horse be- comes stupid, slight colicky symptoms are observed, and he carries his head low and extended. As he grows worse he paws, becomes delirious, is covered with cold sweat, trembles, slobbers, stag- gers and drops dead. Treatment is dif- ficult. A purgative of Barbadoes aloes, one ounce, should be given at once, fol- lowed by Cayenne pepper, one-half
ounce, or
Jamaica ginger, one-half
ounce. If the bowels can be stimu- lated to act, they will in a measure re- lieve the stomach. For this purpose, use turpentine, two ounces, and linseed oil, eight ounces.
GREASE HEEL .- See Scratches.
HEAVES .- A peculiar movement of the abdomen and flank, points to heaves; a cough usually accompanies it. There is no cure for the established disease. Careful dieting will relieve the distress, but this will appear as bad as ever when the stomach is overloaded. The best quality of food lessens heaves. Food that is too bulky and which lacks nutri- ment, has much to do with the disease. Feed affected animals only a small quantity of hay once a day, and in- variably water at least fifteen minutes before feeding, and never directly after meal. Work right after eating aggra- vates the symptoms. Carrots, potatoes or turnips, chopped or mixed with oats or corn, are a good diet. What bulky food is given should be in the evening. Medical treatment is worth less than dieting. A predisposition to the disease may be . inherited.
HIDEBOUND .- A symptom, not a dis- ease. The trouble comes because the horse is out of condition, or because he has worms. bad teeth, indigestion, or some chronic disease.
Hock .- See Capped Hock, etc.
Hooks .- There is a widespread de- lusion that hooks, so called, is a disease affecting the horse's eye. A barbarous custom among cruel men is to forcibly destroy the membrane which keeps the eye free from foreign substances, but the cruelty does not accomplish the de- sired result, though it may injure or destroy the eye. The obstinacy of the membrane simply shows something to be wrong in the anatomy of the horse, just as the tongue will indicate to the observing physician when the stomach of his subject is out of order. To cut or disturb the hooks in the eyes is as
absurd as to doctor the tongue instead of the stomach in the human case.
INDIGESTION .- Some horses, although having a good appetite, remain gaunt and thin from indigestion. They should be given some strong purgative, like Barbadoes aloes, combined with pow- dered ginger, one-half ounce; Glauber's salts, one-half pound, dissolved in a quart of water. When the intestines have been thoroughly cleaned by this process, give daily the following powder : Sulphate of iron, three drachms; sul- phate of soda, two ounces; nux vomica, ten grains; ginger, one-half ounce. This powder may be continued daily for a month. Give all the rock salt the ani- mal will lick.
ITCHING SKIN .- Wash the skin thor- oughly with carbolic soapsuds, and give the horse a half pound of Glauber's salts daily for a week. Do not feed him any grain but wheat, scalded bran and linseed meal, three quarts of the former and one quart of the latter, for two weeks. There will speedily come a change. Card him daily. Scald his oats and give him salt daily. Feed oats, bran and linseed after the two weeks and scald the whole mess. When horses are covered with bunches or lumps, their blood is out of order. Give doses of Glauber's salts daily and hot bran mashes. Give salts a half pound daily. A gill of raw linseed oil every day will be good, mixed with the bran.
KNUCKLING OR COCKED ANKLE .- A condition of the fetlock joint which re- sembles partial dislocation. The trouble is not considered unsoundness, but it predisposes to stumbling. Foals are quite subject to it, and no treatment is necessary, as the legs straighten up naturally in a few weeks. It is caused in horses by heavy and fast work, and is produced sometimes by a disease of the suspensory ligament, or of the flexor tendons. This should be relieved by proper shoeing. The toe must be short- ened and the heels left high, or the shoe should be thin forward with thick heels or high calks.
LAMENESS .- May be due to founder, navicular disease, faulty shoeing, sprains. spavin, etc., etc.
LAMINITIS OR FOUNDER .- See Founder, LAMPAS. - Usually an imaginary trouble. Very rarely does the mem- brane directly beneath the upper front teeth congest and swell enough to in- terfere with feeding. When this trouble is feared there is no quicker nor surer
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cure than feeding a little corn in the bar. When biting off the kernels, the . horse naturally compresses the mem- brane or forces it back. The burning of the lampas is cruel and unnecessary, and if the swelled parts are cut, the cut should not be deep, or danger will result.
LICE .- Remove these by rubbing the horse with a solution of sulphate of potassium, four ounces, and water, one gallon; or with strong tar water; or dust with Persian insect powder; or the skin may be sponged with benzine or quassia chip tea. Any of the applications must be repeated a week later to de- stroy the lice hatching in the interval. All blankets should be boiled, and the stalls painted with turpentine, and lit- tered with fresh pine sawdust.
,LOCKJAW .- This is caused by cuts, nail in the hoof, etc. Nothing is so common from wounds in the feet and from docking. The horse is unable to open his jaws to the fullest extent, and mastication is impossible. Various muscles twitch, the head and tail are elevated and the nose protruded, and the anus is compressed. The animal swallows with difficulty; saliva flows from the mouth. Of course, in this dis- mase the necessity of calling in a skilled veterinary surgeon is indicated.
MEGRIMS .- See Giddiness.
MENINGITIS. SPINAL. - See Choking Distemper.
OVERWORK, OVERHEATING, ETC .- An experienced horseman, if humane, will not push his horse beyond his strength. An indiscreet driver will sometimes bring an animal to the verge of ex- tinction. The symptoms are plain in the audible breathing, staggering gait, ex- hausted appearance and heaving flank. The girts must be removed and the face turned toward the wind, the animal being protected from the sun meantime. The head must be left free and the ١٠ limbs and body well rubbed. The move- ment of the ribs should not be hindered in any way. A few swallows of cold water may be allowed, and, in hot weather, the mouth, forehead and face may be sponged with it. When suf- ficiently revived, the horse should be slowly led to a comfortable box-stall and heavily blanketed, woolen bandages being wound about the legs as well. If the horse has fallen he must not be allowed to lie until he voluntarily gets up, but must be propped up on his breast and not allowed to lie flat on his
side. Heat exhaustion is somewhat
similar in symptom and demands similar treatment, with the addition of throwing cold water over the animal, particularly wetting the head, and causing a current of air to pass over him that evaporation may take place.
PINK-EYE .- A species of influenza which causes inflammation of the eye. It is contagious. Isolate the patient ; disinfect his old stall; blanket him and feed him warm mashes and laxative food; bathe the eyes occasionally with hot water. Boric acid (one dram di- luted with three ounces of water) makes an excellent solution for dropping into sore eyes, at intervals of three or four hours.
RING BONE .-- An osseous exudation or bony deposit at the crown of the hoof. When its presence is first detected the place should be severely blistered once or twice, or red iodide of mercury ap- plied. If this fail, firing with the hot iron in the hands of a competent surgeon will be necessary.
ROARING .- A disease of the muscles of the larynx and a vocal cord. Causes a roaring or whistling sound when the horse is exercising. This trouble may come from straining the respiratory or- gans, it may be an after-effect of dis- temper, or it may have been inherited. Treatment is of little benefit, although a surgical operation sometimes brings relief.
SCRATCHES OR GREASE HEEL .- This trouble is frequently the result of care- lessness in cleaning and ventilating the stable. Many a horse is ruined by al- lowing the legs to go dirty. It takes only a few minutes to wash them clean and rub them dry. If the skin begins to crack it must not be left or it will become almost incurable. The skin must be kept clean and soft. The disease may result from the condition of the blood, from unwholesome fodder, or work in irritating mud or dust, espe- cially of a limestone character. It has been brought on by using caustic soap on the legs, clipping the heels in winter time, by debilitating disease, etc. The first step in a cure is to remove the cause, and if there is much local heat, administer a laxative, like a pound of Glauber's salts. Highly-fed" animals should have their rations reduced, or replaced by bran mashes, flaxseed, fruits. roots, and other non-stimulating food. Bitter tonics are essential also, and may be continued six weeks to two months. If the skin is unbroken, bathe with
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water, one quart, in which sugar of lead, two drachms, is dissolved; or anoint with vaseline, one ounce, sugar of lead, one drachm, and carbolic acid, ten drops. To clip the hair from the horse's heels and poultice them with grated carrot, night and morning, is sometimes bene- ficial. Free exercise is important. Rub the heels dry and apply equal parts of glycerine and compound tincture of aloes. Or try this: Cut the hair off short and paint it over with chloride of zinc and water-thirty grains to one pint of water. Put this on once a day and rub with glycerine.
SHOULDER .- Have properly fitting col- lars. If the surface galls under the col- lar, wish with salt and water at night and with clear water in the morning, and protect the spot with a pad under the collar. If the skin breaks, use a lotion of one drachm of carbolic acid to one quart of water twice a day, and relieve the horse from work for a day or two. It is cruel to work a horse with a raw, sore shoulder. Various forms of shoulder lameness exist. (See Sweeny, Navicular Disease, etc.)
SKIN .- See Itching Skin.
'SPAVIN .- If you have a suspicion of a spavin coming on your horse, employ a good veterinary surgeon. Heroic treat- ment is the only thing in such cases. Judicious firing, strong blistering and perfect rest for at least six weeks or two months, and good nursing will, in most cases, arrest the disease and cure lameness. It is the result of too great exposure in draught or speed, or from slipping and kindred causes.
SPINAL MENINGITIS. - See Choking Distemper.
SPLINT .- This may be rubbed off and the work aided by putting on a liniment, but few would persevere in the rubbing long enough to make a cure. A blister will do it.
SPRAINS .- See Fetlock, etc.
STAGGERS OR FITS .- Horses liable to this trouble should have harnesses that are carefully adjusted, and should not be pushed in hot weather. No heavy feed should be given them at any time, oats and sweet hay or grass being the best. Such animals should not be driven when it can be avoided. When indica- tions point to an attack, the horse should be stopped, his harness loosened, some cold water given him to drink and his face sponged at the same time. Rye is a bad feed for sleepy staggers.
STRING HALT .- Cures are difficult and rare. Consult a veterinarian.
SUNSTROKE .- See Overheating.
SWEENY .- This is often called shoul- der lameness, and it causes the wasting away of some muscles on the outside of the shoulder blade. The trouble, as a rule, is brought about by extra-hard work or pulling when a horse is young. More or less lameness is a symptom of sweeny. Easy work; perfect-fitting col- lars; rubbing with liniment; light blis- ters, etc., are recommended, but a cure is difficult and tedious, as a general thing.
TEETH .- A twenty-year-old horse was not doing well. Upon examination his front teeth were found to be so long that his grinders were kept from coming together, and he could not masticate his food. His teeth were filed off, and the sharp points evened with a float, and he is now doing as well as any of the younger horses. Watch the teeth of the old horse. (See Lampas.)
THOROUGH-PIN .- An enlargement be- tween the point of the hock and the front of the hock joint. Treatment should be the same as for wind-puff.
UNNATURAL APPETITES .- The horse which eats its own excrement, dirt, etc., does it for the acids and salts found in such substances. Give such a horse a pinch of copperas, bone dust, salt, ashes and saltpetre mixed in its meal -once a day. A few days of pasturing will prove beneficial.
WHEEZING .- Horses often snort and wheeze because of an enlargement of the glands in the nostrils. A skilled veterinarian can remove the trouble by cutting it out. Doctoring will not cure snoring or wheezing horses. The air passages are stopped. Wheezing may also be caused by a form of asthma called Heaves (which see).
WIND GALLS OR PUFFS .- The treat- ment consists in pressure by means of bandages and by cold lotions; also, hand rubbing and iodine ointment.
WIND-SUCKING .- See Cribbing.
WORMS .- Horses having greedy appe- tites, rough coats and poor condition may be suspected of worms. Such ani- mals often pass long, round worms. Copperas or tobacco will clear . the worms out of the stomach of a horse. A tablespoonful of copperas for two days and then stop for two. A handful of tobacco dried and made into powder and mixed with the grain. Give this for
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three days and then omit it for a few days. For worms in the rectum a syringe must be used. Salt and water are good; or, carbolic acid diluted fifty times in water; or, what is better, thymo-cresol, diluted one to fifty parts of water.
PUNCTURE .- It is dangerous for a horse to step on a nail, as it is likely to result in lockjaw. Have the black- - smith cut out the puncture down to tender flesh, then fill the opening with a 5 per cent. solution of carbolic acid and pack with cotton to keep out dirt, and repeat daily, soaking the foot in clean warm water before dressing.
NAVICULAR DISEASE is indicated by a shrunken shoulder, and a contracted foot that is placed several inches in advance of the other while at rest. This is an inflammation or ulceration of the pedal sesamoid at the point where the tendons play over it. The symptoms are often very obscure, according to the stage of the disease, and the lameness is at- tributed to some difficulty in the shoul- der. This, however, is a mistake. It is due to the wasting of the shoulder muscles from disease. The cause is usually fast work on hard roads or pavements, causing slight inflammation, which being unnoticed or neglected, in- creases and ends in ulceration. The best treatment is to remove the shoe, pare down the hoofwall and round the edge to prevent splitting, then fire deeply in points around and above the coronet, follow up with one or more blisters of red iodide of mercury, one part, lard, three parts, and when the effects pass off, turn out the animal to pasture for six weeks. It is always best to con- sult, in this disease, a competent veteri- nary surgeon.
CORNS originate in simple bruises. There is later an increased production
of hoof, and the formation of a horny tumor which presses on the quick. If of recent formation apply a bar shoe and rasp down the bearing surface of the afflicted heel and avoid pressure. Soak the feet. A horny tumor must be pared to the quick and packed with tar. Shoe with a bar shoe and place a leather sole between it and the hoof. If the corn be further advanced the foot should be soaked in a bucket of hot water for an hour, and then poulticed. Any matter that has formed should be liberated, and if grit or dirt has got into the heel this should be cleaned out. Poultices should be kept upon the wound until it is healed and free from soreness. If the cause is so serious that matter has burst out at the top of the heel, only a veterinary surgeon is competent to manage it.
THRUSH is a disease which shows an excessive secretion of unhealthy matter in the frog, and is detected by its vile odor. A common cause is foul stables. The cure consists in cleanliness and the removal of the cause. The diseased and ragged portions of the frog should be pared and scraped and the foot poulticed for a day or two with oil meal and water, to which may be added a few drops of carbolic acid, or some powdered charcoal. The dressing should be changed daily, and after every vestige of decayed substance is removed, the cleft of the frog and grooves on its edges should be cleaned and packed with oakum, held in place by leather nailed on with the shoe. Before packing, cover the place with a good coat of sulphate of zinc,. pressing well in. Horses especially liable to thrush may need to be protected in the stable by the use of boots. Sometimes other diseases combine with thrush, making a cure seem impossible.
Dehorning Calves
Taking horns off yearling or older cat- tle is a hard shock to them. It costs a week's feed, and may cost much more. It is very easy to prevent the horns starting, requiring only thoughtful at- tention for a few minutes before the horns have come through the skin.
The following recipe has never failed : Procure common powdered concentrated lye, such as all housewives use. A 10- cent can will dehorn 100 calves. When the calf is a week or more old, before the horn has come through the skin, and when you can feel it in the shape of a little button under the skin, take
the calf in hand. Lay him gently on his side. Spit on the little bump and rub it in with your finger, till a place is wet as big as a silver quarter of a dollar. Don't wet anywhere else. Take your knife and lift out dry the powdered lye, as much as two grains of corn. Press it down on the wet place. It will stick there. Treat the other side in the same manner. Let the calf go. It won't hurt him much, or long. A scab forms; do not touch it. It will peel off after a time, and the hair will grow over the place; you will have a fine, smooth head, equal to a natural polled head.
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Cow Ailments and How to Treat Them
(From the Biggle Cow Book)
Let sick or maimed animals lie still. Do not torture them by trying to get them up. Rub their limbs every day and keep a soft bed under them. They will get up when they are able.
If a cow look poor and weak, put a blanket on her, keep her in a warm place, and feed her some corn meal and middlings, and some Give her warm drink, and stir a little cheap flour in it. Do not let her run clear down. Look ahead.
If cows are accidentally left out in a rain and seem cold, put them in the stable as soon as possible and rub them well. If they shiver, put blankets on them until they are dry. If there is inflammation or hardness in the udder, bathe it thoroughly for at least half an hour, and rub gently until thoroughly dry.
If this does not effect a cure put a warin flaxseed poultice on the udder, which can be held in place by means of an eight-tailed bandage. This should be changed twice a day until the hardness and soreness are gone. Of course, the `cow should be milked out two or three times each day.
If a cow get a foreign body in the mouth turn her head towards the light and remove it.
When chaff or other dirt gets into the eye syringe or sponge the eye fre- quently with clean cold water contain- ing sulphate of zinc one grain to each ounce of water. Keep stable darkened.
For CHOKING, examine throat and neck; if offending object is felt, attempt to force upward into the mouth by pres- sure of hands below the object. Give one pint linseed oil or melted lard. May sometimes reach with hand by holding tongue aside. Do not push a stiff stick or fork handle down the throat; a piece of rubber hose, well greased, is less likely to ruin the cow.
If a cow has BLOAT or HOVEN there will be a drum-like swelling on left side in front of hip, caused by green food, wet or frosted clover, overfeeding, chok- ing. Give one-half teacupful table salt in water, as drench. Exercise. If not relieved give aromatic spirits of am- monia, two ounces, well diluted, every hour.
Where there is great danger of suf- focation a puncture of the paunch may be made with a knife at a point, equally
distant from the point of hip and last rib, on left side of cow.
IMPACTION OF PAUNCH is caused by overeating, and the symptoms are fail- ing appetite, solid or doughy swell- ing on front of left hip. Give one to two pounds Glauber salts dissolved in water; follow every three hours by drench of mixture of equal parts com- mon salt, nux vomica powdered and capsicum. Dose, one tablespoonful.
In COLIC the symptoms are uneasiness, striking belly with hind legs, lying down and getting up. Cause, change of diet, rapid feeding. Give Glauber salts, one pound in water; warm water enemas. Give every hour one ounce each of laudanum and sulphuric ether, diluted.
CONSTIPATION caused by dry, coarser food and lack of exercise, is treated with green food, linseed meal and exercise ; give pint of raw linseed oil. DIARRHOEA is treated with starch gruel or flour and water and dry food.
SCOURS in calves is caused by over- feeding, bad food or drink, damp stables, dirty surroundings. Remove cause and withhold food the best remedy. Give once daily twenty grains potassium per- manganate in tincup of water; also use same for enema.
Cows are subject to FOUNDER, showing sudden tenderness in two or more feet; feet hot and may crack around top of hoof. This comes from overfeeding. Give Glauber salts one pound, twenty drops tincture aconite every two hours. Keep feet moist by wet pasture or wet cloths.
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