It is just as well to use caution when introducing new birds even if there is not the least suspicion that they are not perfectly healthy.
When new stock is bought it should be kept by itself for a week to determine if it is free from disease. Not once in a hundred times will birds bought of a reliable breeder be found unhealthy, but prevention is better than cure any time, so precautions should be taken. In such cases it is much better to be over cautious than to have losses occur through lack of precaution.
GOING LIGHT
"Going Light" is the common name for tuberculosis in pigeons. It is brought on by drinking impure water, eating unsound feed, lack of good supply of grit, or from natural lack of vitality. This disease never attacks healthy and vigorous birds, but takes for its victims those which have become weak from any reason. If it is not taken in hand at once, the bird wastes away and becomes nothing but "skin and bones" and dies. The first symptoms are usually diarrhoea, the droppings being thin and watery. The bird does not eat, but sits around with its head drawn down and really starves to death because it has no appetite to eat.
If a bird which has started to go light, is taken in hand at once it is very often possible to save it for future usefulness. Give it a dose of castor oil, giving about five or six drops. Put in a coop by itself and the next day give it ten drops of cod liver oil. Repeat the dose of cod liver oil every day until the bird is cured. Give it hempseed every day and be very certain the seed is sound and free from mustiness. A good health grit or tonic is the best preventive to be used.
CANKER
Canker is a disease of the same nature as diphtheria in human beings. It appears occasionally in lofts where it never before has been found, and seems to be contracted from germs which float in the air. It often attacks the birds in one nest and not the one next to it, although if it is not taken in hand it will soon spread to all the birds in the loft.
It no doubt comes from a cold very often and for that reason birds which show symptoms of having caught cold should be carefully watched. The first appearance of this disease shows in little yellowish white blisters on the lining or mucous membrane of the mouth and throat. These rapidly increase in size and spread to other parts of the throat and form a cheesy growth until they show outside around the mouth, and the bird chokes to death.
When canker appears in a squab only and the parent bird shows no sign of it, the best thing to do is to kill the squab, disinfect the loft and stay the disease in this way. It may be cured by using a little patience, unless it has gone too far before it is discovered.
Remove the sick bird from the loft and keep it in some place not adjacent to the pigeon house. Take a small sharp splinter of wood, such as sharpened match, and scrape the cankers off, doing this as gently as possible. This will leave a raw red spot, which should be gently swabbed with a solution of peroxide of hydrogen and water, half and half. The solution will foam as if it were boiling, but it is entirely painless and does not hurt the bird in the least. Repeat the swabbing, putting on plenty of the solution, until it ceases to foam. It does not matter if a little of the solution goes down the throat of the bird, as it is perfectly harmless when swallowed by man, beast or bird, and it is the best germicide known, being non-poisonous and odorless.