USA > Ohio > Darke County > The Farm journal rural directory of Darke County, Ohio [with a complete road map of the county] 1916 > Part 33
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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.
OVERWORK, OVERHEATING, ETC .- An 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 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 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 . be continued six weeks to two months. side. Heat exhaustion is somewhat 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 discase, a competent veteri- nary surgeon.
CORNS originate in simple bruises. There is later an increased production
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.
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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
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.
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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Hog Ailments and How to Treat Them
(From the Biggle Swine Book)
More has been spoken and written on the subject of hog cholera than upon any other one subject connected with hogs. It has ever been a fruitful source for discussion at farmers' in- stitutes and an endless theme on which to write. The Government has appro- priated large sums of money and has employed learned men who have la- bored with seeming diligence for years, and yet after all these years of waiting and all this expenditure of money we are forced to admit, whether humili- ating or not, that we know but very little that is of practical benefit about the whole matter.
But two things are absolutely known about the disease. One is that it sweeps unrestrained over vast areas of country, leaving death and destruction in its wake; and the other is that hogs which contract the disease usually die.
We shall not attempt to deal with this subject in a scientific way, but shall deal with it rather from a practical standpoint.
A somewhat recent means of preventing the disease is the serum or antitoxin cure. It consists in introducing into the system of the animal a serum which enables the body to more successfully combat the disease. The Government officials seem to be highly pleased with the results so far and seem to believe that relief from the dread disease is likely to come through this means. The serum produced last year, wherever used in cholera-infected herds, saved over eighty per cent. of the animals. It is easily applied, and its good effects in sick hogs are seen almost immediately.
Page after page has been written as a means of telling hog cholera, but much of it is difficult of comprehension to the average reader. If you have never had it in your herd you are to be congratu- lated on your good fortune; and if you ever do, when you are done with it you may not have as many hogs as you did before, but rest assured of one thing, and that is you will know hog cholera when you see it again. As a rule hogs do not look well for weeks before an attack. At other times it will come like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. The first thing noticeable is a loss of appetite; the hair will look harsh and dry; sometimes a slight cough will be noticeable, at other times not.
The disease is sometimes of slow devel- opment, at other times quite rapid. In- stead of the sprightly, rapid movement so characteristic of the young and grow- ing hog, he moves slowly and indiffer- ently ; he looks gaunt and tired; his back is arched, and he moves his hind legs with a dragging motion; his tem- perature will most likely be high, prob- ably from 104 to 108-the normal tem- perature of the hog is from 100 to 102. His bowels may be costive or the dis- charges may be thin and watery in sub- stance, but usually black or dark in color, emitting an offensive odor peculiar to the disease.
The disease may be of a lingering character and the animals linger for weeks, or they may die in three of four days. Usually the lingering type is less fatal than the more rapid forms of the disease. Hogs which discharge freely in the first stages of the disease are more likely to recover than when the bowels remain constipated. Dark blue spots will often appear under the skin. The bowels will be more or less inflamed inside; in the small intestines and sometimes in the stomach will be found ulcers; this, how- ever, is not common in the first stages of the disease. The bladder will most likely be full of a dark thick substance, show- ing that the kidneys, and in fact the whole internal organism, are affected.
If we were to say what we thought was the best thing that could possibly be done when cholera appears in a herd, we would unhesitatingly say, take the well hogs to clean new quarters where no hogs have been for years. Then if more of them take sick move them again, and it is our belief based on actual experi- ence that more can be accomplished in this way than by the use of all the medi- cine in the country. For various reasons it is not always possible to move hogs, and in that case treatment may be re- sorted to, sometimes with fairly good re- sults. The treatment should consist in separating the well from the sick hogs, and in dividing the sick hogs according to age and size and severity of the at- tack. Not more than four or five hogs should be in the same pen, and fewer would be still better. Feed but little, and let that be food which is easily digested. Use air-slacked lime and crude carbolic acid freely as a disinfectant. Use it both on the hogs and on the ground, in
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the sleeping places, on the fences and in the drinking vessels. As much depends on a thorough use of disinfectants as upon any other thing. If the bowels are constipated give something to move them. If too loose give something to check them. In short, use good common horse sense (so to speak) and you will usually suc- ceed very well. There is nothing better than salts or oil to move the bowels, and nothing shows better results in checking them than a few drops of crystal carbolic acid. We know of no food better, if indeed as good, for sick hogs than ship stuff, or middlings as it is sometimes called; it seems to digest easily and is nothing to the bowels.
If the weather is wet and cold keep the hogs dry and warm. In wet weather (if not too warm) keep the hogs in a floored pen, or at least in a pen where no water will lie in sinks or holes, as dirty water is one of the worst things a sick hog can possibly have. If the weather is- warm, shelter the hog from heat. In other words, make him as comfortable as possible.
Let it be borne constantly in mind that much depends on good nursing. It would seem natural and reasonable that an animal afflicted as he is would do best if allowed plenty of fresh water to drink, but actual experience demonstrates that a greater number recover when the sup- ply of water is limited than when it is not.
Hogs that are very sick should be kept by themselves, as others seem to disturb them, and often their recovery depends on being perfectly still at the critical pe- riod of the disease. As a rule hogs that are too sick to eat die. All hogs that die of cholera, or of any other disease for the matter of that, should be burned and not buried, as abundant evidence can be produced to prove that the carcasses of hogs dying of cholera have been the cause of an outbreak years afterward. By all means burn all dead hogs as the only absolutely safe way of disposing of them. The burning operation is very simple. Lay the bodies across two logs, sticks or pieces of iron that will keep them up off the ground so that the fire can get under them, and the grease from their own bodies will usually do the work, with a little wood or corn cobs added occasionally.
Experience teaches that the disease more commonly appears in large herds than in small ones. The moral of this, then, is easily understood. Do not keep
hogs in large droves. Not over twenty- five or thirty hogs at most should long remain together, and half the number would · be infinitely better and safer in every way. Hogs of different sizes and ages should not be kept together, except- ing of course sows and suckling pigs. Hogs should not be kept on the same ground from year to year if it can pos- sibly be avoided. Plow up the lots and pens and cultivate them for a year or two; it will greatly assist in keeping your lots free from the germ. The dis- ease is much more prevalent in the sum- mer and fall months than in other sea- sons of the year. Then as far as is pos- sible reduce the number of hogs on the farm at this season of the year.
If your neighbor's hogs have the dis- easc, stay away from his pens and be sure he stays away from yours. Shoot a crow, a buzzard, or a stray dog that comes on your place as unhesitatingly as you would kill a mad dog. This trio does more to scatter the disease than all the other causes combined. If your hogs are fit or any way near fit to go to mar- ket when the disease makes its appear- ance in the neighborhood, sell them with- out delay. "A bird in hand is worth . two in a bush." If your hogs have chol- cra this year, don't get discouraged and quit, but try it again, on fresh ground.
If your brood sows have passed through the cholera, keep them; they are valuable. They will never again have the disease, and their pigs are not nearly so apt to contract it as pigs from sows that have not had the disease. Look out for streams which come down from some neighbor above you. This has been found a frequent cause of cholera out- breaks. The germs of hog cholera pos- sess great vitality, and will live in the soil, in moist matter and especially in water, for months.
If you feed corn, rake the cobs to- gether often and burn them; pour water on the coals and then put salt on the charcoal thus made and you have an excellent preventive for diseases, with little or no cost. Keep your hogs, ex- cepting brood sows, ready for market. It may come handy some day. Strong. vigorous hogs are less liable to contract the disease than hogs of less strength and vigor. Then breed and feed for both these things. Eternal vigilance in hog breeding, as in other kinds of busi- ness, is the price of success.
Here is a formula for the treatment of hog cholera that is probably as good as
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any, which is not saying much. It is suggested by the Department of Agri- culture :
Sulphur 1 pound.
Wood charcoal. pound.
Sodium chloride. 2 pounds. Sodium bicarbonate ... 2 pounds. Sodium hyposulphite. . 2 pounds. Sodium sulphate. ... 1 pound.
Antimony sulphide .... 1 pound.
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Thoroughly mix and give a large table- spoonful to each 200-pound hog, once a day. If the animal does not eat, add the medicine to a little water, thoroughly shake and give from a bottle by the mouth. If the animal will eat, mix the medicine with sloppy food. The same remedy is recommended as a preventive to those animals that do not as yet show signs of disease.
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If you have had cholera on your place, and you have small, inexpensive pens, burn them at once. In a piggery, burn all the litter and loose inexpensive parts ; renew the floor, if possible, and disinfect the remainder by washing it with hot water and washing soda. After wash- ing, apply with a whitewash brush, or better yet a spray pump, a solution of one part of carbolic acid to fifty parts of water. Then thoroughly whitewash. Treat the fences in the same way. Earth floors should be removed to a depth of at least six inches and the ground sprin- kled with chloride of lime and a few days later a good coating of air-slacked lime. Don't put pigs in the quarters for at least six months, and, if possible, have them vacant over the first winter.
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An Ohio breeder of large experience, in the Miami valley, where hog cholera first appeared in 1856 and has recurred . at frequent intervals, holds that drugs, virus and antitoxin have all been fairly tried sundry times by him and his neigh- bors. He believes that prevention will do more to hold in check the plague than drugs and hypodermic infusions. The most important help to prevent spread of disease is not to allow the hog farm to become infected with the excrement of diseased hogs. This can be done by quarantining the herd in a field, that is to be put under cultivation the following year. This quarantine must be estab- lished as soon as the first pig is taken sick. If the disease is in the neighbor- hood, carefully watch for first symptoms of disorder. Do not wait until several are sick and scouring, for this excre- ment is loaded with germs of disease, and these germs may retain vitality many
months when covered in the corners of pens, or filth of yards, or about an old straw stack; but when exposed to sun- light or dryness they lose vitality in a few days, and under some very drying sunlight conditions in a few hours. Care- fully observing these facts, ne has in forty years been- clear of hog cholera the year following an attack, and on un- til the disease has become epidemic in his neighborhood. After the herd has been placed in quarantine away from the permanent hog houses, lots and feeding floors, he kills and burns, or buries five feet deep, each animal as soon as it shows distinct symptoms of disease. They are burned or buried beside the quarantine, and in the field to be cul- tivated the following year. It requires nerve to kill breeding stock of great value, but they are as liable to spread and entail disease as any other, when once attacked.
If, by any means, we can prevent spread of germs, by so much do we hold the disease in check. A farm, with its feed lots and pens and shelters infected by the excrement of the diseased, be- comes as deadly a centre as the public stock-yards and filthy stock cars on the railroads, and these are so thoroughly infected that we can never safely take stock hogs from these to our farms. This is not theory, but well proven fact.
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