Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

884 CATTLE.
ously injured : she either cast her calf, or was lost in parturition.
This error has been long exploded among the breeders of sheep
and breeders of cattle' are beginning to act more wisely.
Cows that have been long afflicted with hoose, and that degenerating
into consumption, are exceedingly subject to abortion. They
are continually in heat—they rarely become pregnant, or if they
do, a grqat proportion of them cast their calves. When consump-
tion is established, and the cow is much wasted away, she will rarely
retain her calf during the natural period of pregnancy.
An in-calf beast will scarcely have hoove to any considerable
extent without afterwards aborting. The pressure of the distended
rumen seems to injure or destroy the fetus. Even where the distension
of the stomach does not wear a serious character, abortion
often follows the sudden change from poor to luxuriant food. Cows
that have been out and half-starved in the winter, and incautiously
turned on rich pasture in , the
spring, are too apt to cast their
calves from the undue general or local excitation that is set up
and, as has been already remarked, a sudden change from rich
pasture to a state of comparative starvation will produce the same
effect, but from an opposite cause. Hence it is that when this dispo-
sition to abort first appears in a dairy, it is usually in a cow that
has been lately purchased. Fright, from, whatever cause, may produce
abortion. There are singular cases on record of whole herds
of cows slinking their calves after being terrified by an unusually
violent thunder-storm. Commerce with the bull soon after conception
is a frequent cause of abortion. The casting of the calf has
already been attributed to the sympathetic influence of the effluvia
from the decomposing placenta :
there are plenty of instances in .which
other putrid smells have produced the same effect, and therefore
the inmates of crowded cow-houses are not unfrequently subject to
this mishap.
The use of a diseased bull will occasion abortion, and the calves
.
will be aborted in a diseased state.
Besides these tangible causes of abortion, there is the mysterious
agency of the atmosphere. There are certain seasons when abortion
is strangely frequent and fatal ; while at other times it in a manner
disappears for several successive years.
There is no doubt that this must be added to the number of epidemic
diseases. ,
The consequences of premature calving are frequently of a very
serious nature. It has been stated that there is often considerable
spasmodic closure of the mouth of the uterus, and that the calf is
produced with much difficulty and pain, and especially if a few days
have elapsed after the death of the young one. When this is the
case, the mother frequently dies, or her recovery is much slower than
after natural parturition. The coat continues rough and staring for
; ;