Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their CureJennings, Robert
Science
Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their Cure
Jennings, Robert
Cattle -- Diseases
Having the cattle prepared for travel, the drover takes the road very
slowly for the first two days, not exceeding seven or eight miles a day.
At night, in winter, they should be put into an open court, and supplied
with hay, water, and a very few turnips; for, if roots are suddenly
withdrawn from them,--since it is taken for granted that these have
formed a staple portion of their food,--their bellies will become
shrunken up into smaller dimensions--a state very much against favorable
appearance in market. After the first two days they may proceed faster,
say twelve or thirteen miles a day, if very fat; and fifteen, if
moderately so. When the journey is long and the beasts get faint from
travel, they should have corn to support them. In frosty weather, when
the roads become very hard, they are apt to become shoulder-shaken, an
effect of founder; and if sleet falls during the day, and becomes frozen
upon them at night, they may become so chilled as to refuse food, and
shrink rapidly away. Cattle should, if possible, arrive the day before
in the neighborhood of a distant market, and be supplied with a good
feed of roots and hay, or grass, to make them look fresh and fill them
up again; but if the market is at but short distance, they can travel to
it early in the morning.
[Illustration: A FRONTISPIECE.]
In driving cattle the drover should have no dog, which will only annoy
them. He should walk either before or behind, as he sees them disposed
to proceed too fast or to loiter upon the road; and in passing
carriages, the leading ox, after a little experience, will make way for
the rest to follow. On putting oxen on a ferry-boat the shipping of the
first one only is attended with much trouble. A man on each side should
take hold of a horn, or of a halter made of any piece of rope, should
the beast be hornless, and two other men, one on each side, should push
him up behind with a piece of rope held between them as a breeching, and
conduct him along the plank into the boat; if it have low gunwales, a
man will be required to remain beside him until one or two more of the
cattle follow their companion, which they will most readily do. From
neglecting this precaution in small ferry-boats, the first beast
sometimes leaps into the water, when it becomes a difficult task to
prevent some of the rest doing the same thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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