Dips and their uses

Abstract

Introduction: Every successful breeder realized the importance of keeping his live stock free from disease. Whether a breeder is a success or a failure depends largely upon whether he is giving his stock constant care, thus keeping them in a healthy condition and ever on the gain; or whether he is allowing some disease to gain a hold upon them, thus destroying his gain, or causing him some actual losses. One of the leading problems that is confronting the breeder of today is to keep his live stock in a perfectly healthy condition. It is a well established fact that the most economical way of fighting disease is by prevention. If this method is practiced there is no loss; while if the breeder allows a disease to get a hold upon the flock or herd, there is very apt to be some loss before the disease can be checked. If there is no loss in numbers, there will surely be some check in growth, which amounts to a direct loss. It is simpler, wiser and cheaper to prevent a disease than to cure it. It is a well established fact also, that at least four fifths of diseases of live stock are either contagious or infectous; that is they are caused by some micro-organism, or else by some minute insect. The simplest way of fighting disease therefore would be to fight the organism, and it is the use of dips in their relation to this work that I propose to discuss.