The dry and healthful climate, the rolling surface, and the sweet and
varied herbage, which generally prevail in the United States, insure
perfect health to an originally sound and well-selected flock, unless
they are peculiarly exposed to disease. No country is better suited to
sheep than most of the Northern and some of the Southern portions of our
own. In Europe, and especially in England, where the system of
management is, necessarily, in the highest degree artificial,
consisting, frequently, in an early and continued forcing of the system,
folding on wet, ploughed ground, and the excessive use of that watery
food, the Swedish turnip, there are numerous and fatal diseases, a long
list of which invariably cumbers the pages of foreign writers on this
animal.
The diseases incident to our flocks, on the contrary, may generally be
considered as casualties, rather than as inbred, or necessarily arising
from the quality of food, or from local causes. It may be safely
asserted that, with a dry pasture, well stocked with varied and
nutritious grasses; a clear, running stream; sufficient shade and
protection against severe storms; a constant supply of salt, tar, and
sulphur in summer; good hay, and sometimes roots, with ample shelters in
winter--young sheep, originally sound and healthy, will seldom or never
become diseased on American soil.
The comparatively few diseases, which it may be necessary here to
mention, are arranged in alphabetical order--as in the author's "Cattle
and their Diseases"--for convenience of reference, and treated in the
simplest manner. Remedies of general application, to be administered
often by the unskilful and ignorant, must neither be elaborate nor
complicated; and, if expensive, the lives of most sheep would be dearly
purchased by their application.
A sheep, which has been reared or purchased at the ordinary price, is
the only domestic animal which can die without material loss to its
owner. The wool and felt will, in most instances, repay its cost, while
the carcass of other animals will be worthless, except for manure. The
loss of sheep, from occasional disease, will leave the farmer's pocket
in a very different condition from the loss of an equal value in horses
or cattle. Humanity, however, alike with interest, dictates the use of
such simple remedies, for the removal of suffering and disease, as may
be within reach.