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Over-distention of the stomach and intestines due to feeding too much roughage and grain interferes with respiration. Severe exercise when in this condition may result in over-distention, dilation and rupture of the air cells. This is the most common structural change met with in the lungs of horses affected with heaves. It is termed emphysema.
A light, easily digested diet should be fed. Very little roughage should be fed. If the animal does not eat well, it may be given eggs and milk. Weak pulse beats should be treated by giving digitalis and strychnine. Counterirritation to the chest wall is indicated. During convalescence, bitter tonics may be given. Constipation should be treated by giving the animal castor or linseed oil.
I keep an abundance of roughage, usually shredded corn, before the cows all the time. When it has been picked over moderately well, it is thrown out for bedding, and fresh fodder is put in its place. The finer forages, timothy, red-top, clover, alfalfa, and oat straw, are always cut fine, wetted, and mixed with grain before feeding.
Yet a third a foe, plainly, to the butcher, but a well-wisher to the hay-and-produce dealer if ever one lived recommended that I should eliminate all meat of whatsoever character or color and stick closely to fodder, roughage and processed ensilage. I judge he sent his more desperate cases to a livery stable.
They are not the cows for people to keep who have to buy feed in a high market, for they are not easy keepers in any sense; but for the farmer who raises a lot of grain and roughage which should be fed at his own door, they are ideal. They will eat much and return much. As to feeding for milk, I have followed nearly the same plan through my whole experiment.
Low, poorly-drained land is not a safe pasture for cattle and horses. Spoiled roots, grains and silage, mouldy, dirty roughage and decomposed slops should not be fed to live stock.
Such animals usually suffer from a catarrhal or chronic inflammation of the intestine, and may have periodic attacks of acute indigestion or colic. Obstruction colic is very often caused by the feeding of too much roughage in the form of straw, shredded fodder, or hay. Debility often contributes to this form of indigestion, and the double colon may become badly impacted with alimentary matter.
The treatment is largely preventive and consists largely in removing the cause. When the mouth is inflamed, roughage should be fed rather sparingly, and soft feeds such as slops, mashes, or gruels given in place of the regular diet. Plenty of clean drinking water should be provided. In the way of medicinal treatment antiseptic and astringent washes are indicated.
This form of sore mouth will be discussed along with other infectious diseases, and the following discussion will be confined to the non-infectious form of the disease. The causes are irritation from the bit, sharp teeth, irritating drenches, roughage that contains beards or awns of grasses and grains, and burrs that wound the lining membrane of the mouth.
The truth is that mountain beef, being fed nothing but grass and browse, with barely enough corn and roughage to keep the animal alive through winter, is blue-fleshed, watery, and tough. If properly reared, the quality would be as good as any. Almost any of our farmers could have had a pasture near home and could have grown hay, but not one in ten would take the trouble.
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