Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

CONSTIPATION.
Hum ; and then arnica, and wash the parts with arnica water ; and
if there be weakness, give china to combat it.
CONSTIPATION.
If the first milk, or beastings, has been taken from the calf, and
constipation, from that, or from any other cause, succeeds, an aperient
should be administered without delay. The sticky black faeces, with
which the bowels of the newly-born calf are often loaded, must be
got rid of. Castor oil is the safest and the most effectual aperient
for so young an animal. It should be given, mixed up with the yolk
of an egg, or in thick gruel, in doses of two or three ounces ; and
even at this early age, the carminative which forms so usual and
indispensable an ingredient in the physic of cattle must not be omitted
a scruple of ginger should be added to the oil.
Constipation of another kind may be prevented, but rarely cured.
If the weather will permit, and the cow is turned out during the day,
and the calf with her, the young one may suck as often and as much
as it pleases—the exercise which it takes with its mother, and the
small quantity of green meat which it soon begins to crop, will keep
it healthy ; but if it be under shelter with its dam, and lies quiet and
sleepy the greater part of the day, some restraint must be put upon
it. It must be tied in a corner of the hovel, and not permitted to
suck more than three times during the day, otherwise it will take
more milk than its weak digestive powers will be able to dispose of,
and which will coagulate, and form a hardened mass, and fill the
stomach and destroy the animal. The quantity of this hardened curd
which has sometimes been taken from the fourth stomach almost
exceeds belief. This is particularly the case when a foster-mother,
that probably had calved several weeks before, is given to the little
one, or the calf has too early been fed with the common milk of the
dairy. [The only chance of success in this disease lies in the frequent
administration (by means of the stomach-pump, or the drink poured
gently down from a small horn) of plenty of warm water, two ounces
of Epsom salt being dissolved in the quantity used at each adminis-
tration.
At a later period, the calf is sometimes suffered to feed too plenti-
fully on hay, before the manyplus has acquired sufficient- power to
grind down the fibrous portions of it. This will be indicated by dullness,
fever, enlargement of the belly, and the cessation of rumination,
but no expression of extreme pain. The course pursued must be the
same. The manyplus must be emptied, either by washing it out, by
the frequent passage of warm water through it, or -by stimulating it
to greater action, through the means of the sympathetic influence of
a purgative on the fourth stomach and the intestinal canal.
A tendency to costiveness in a calf should be obviated as speedily
as possible—it is inconsistent with the natural and profitable thriving
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