ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

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Although bites are the normal way the disease is spread, you should know that the saliva from an infected animal is the principal carrier of the virus causing the disease. It can enter your body through a break in the skin on your hand, or by getting into your eye. If rabies has been diagnosed in your area, any animal—wild or domestic—acting the least bit odd should be considered as a possible early case of the disease. Do not put your hands in such an animal's mouth. Most cases will turn out to be from something else, such as lead poisoning, nervous acetonemia, or listeriosis. As a livestock owner, you cannot ignore this. You need veterinary help, but you and your veterinarian are dealing with the possibility of a disease fatal to yourselves, and must be careful.

The classic dumb form of rabies is the dog who disappears for a day or two, then returns home acting either unusually affectionate or unfriendly. Its lower jaw droops or it just slobbers as though something is stuck in its throat or mouth. The admonishment given veterinary students years ago, "Beware of the dog with a bone in its throat," is still good advice for every person in an area where rabies has been reported.

Since cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and even hogs with rabies may chew on inedible things, or chew on hay and not be able to swallow, let's alter the warning to say, "Beware of any animal with something stuck in its mouth." Let's also add, "Beware of any wild creature that is not abnormally unafraid of you."

Theoretically, a rabid deer could infect your livestock; but more likely, a wandering rabid fox, coon, skunk, coyote, or dog would be the culprit. The classic rabies symptoms in the cow are weakness of the rear quarters, drooping tail, or tail pulled to one side, straining, staggering, bellowing, or attempting to bellow and resembling a yawn, chewing on wood or stall piping, slobbering, bloating as when choking, charging but seemingly not to see, going down, and finally death.

In sheep, symptoms are similar, but they do not bleat. Goats, too, have similar symptoms, but they do bleat. As an example of the difficulty in diagnosis, a baby goat eating one rhododendron leaf will have all of the above symptoms, and bleat a sad little sound that would break the heart of the most hardened person you know.

Horses with rabies may become agitated, even attack and bite, or they may be seen as lame. then act dull, stagger, and go down. Equine encephalomyelitits (sleeping sickness) comes to my mind as a disease very difficult to differentiate from dumb rabies in the live horse.

Pigs with rabies become agitated and will attack. Sows will show chomping motions, salivation and twitching of the nose. They will go down on their sides, and go through running motions with their legs. These symptoms are also seen in eclampsia and other diseases in sows.

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